


Lost in the Echo Part V

by flamethrower



Series: Re-Entry: Journey of the Whills [45]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
Genre: Alternate Universe, F/F, F/M, Fucking Time Travel, GFY, M/M, Meddling, Rebels
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-11
Updated: 2015-07-11
Packaged: 2018-04-08 19:04:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,486
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4316160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flamethrower/pseuds/flamethrower
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I knew you were still alive when you changed the beacon call for the Temple, you crazy, brazen son of a bitch.”</p><p>Obi-Wan gave him a faint smile.  “Someone had to do it.”</p><p>“I know.”  Then and now, his General was such a damned Jedi.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Lost in the Echo Part V

**Author's Note:**

> Originally this story arc was going to be six chapters long.  
> GUESS WHAT IS NOT GOING TO BE ONLY SIX CHAPTERS. *head-desk*
> 
> BetaBeta testing: Norcumi, who speed-beta'd so you guys could have a weekend chapter, and thus deserves all the cookies.
> 
> Bunny Rating: 2 Buns

Imperial Year 26: 11/18th

Chiss space, Unknown Regions

 

_“Ahnsytano, sinti hahto’ri—”_

Mitth’raw’nuruodo held up his hand without looking up from the station he was observing. _“Grah’dora ka’no e’psistan, There’tona’laluon._ In Basic, please, Lieutenant Retonal.”

There’tona’laluon nodded. “My apologies, Grand Admiral, Captain. There is a prisoner who has asked to speak with you, Admiral.”

He lifted his head and turned to There’tona’laluon. “I was not notified that we had prisoners.”

“Just the one, Admiral. He is a recent acquisition.”

“One moment,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo told the Ensign, who jerked a nod. It did not escape Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s notice that the Ensign’s posture relaxed when he thought his Admiral would no longer see. The Empire’s prejudices irritated him to no end, but they would fade in time.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo paced down the length of the bridge, aware that his new Captain was following, alert but not filling the air with questions. He always did appreciate a senior officer that observed first and registered an opinion after. That was the sort of officer that lived longer, performed better.

“Now: Tell me of this prisoner, Lieutenant.”

“Sir. One of our explorer teams tasked with mapping the Redoubt caught a long-range broadcast for assistance,” There’tona’laluon said, after straightening his shoulders and giving his Admiral proper (Chiss) respect. “It is _Tyhrus Rishal.”_

 _Tyhrus Rishal_. _Outbound Flight._ Mitth’raw’nuruodo had read of the crash site’s discovery several years ago, but otherwise had refused to have a single thing more to do with the old Republic flight. The survivors of the crash had colonized an insignificant planetoid within the Redoubt, and refused any attempt at aid or supplies, let alone relocation to an environment better-suited to humanoids. Fools.

“I was given the impression from the initial exploration team that _Tyhrus Rishal_ does not have long-range communications capacity.”

“No, Admiral, they did not. However, the incoming prisoner…he built one, sir.” There’tona’laluon grimaced, as if the words pained him to say. “He built it out of garbage, Admiral.”

“And when his signal was observed and a team sought out its source, he asked for me. How did he do so, Lieutenant?”

“By name, sir,” There’tona’laluon answered. “Your full name.”

“My name is not exactly uncommon within the bounds of Chiss space, Lieutenant,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, narrowing his eyes. “Tell me why this is not a waste of my valuable time.”

There’tona’laluon bent over, unzipping the long pockets on the outside of his trousers. That was another irritating thing about Imperial uniforms—no recognition of the need to carry more things on one’s person than could be supported by a single belt. Chiss uniforms suffered no such lack of storage.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo crossed his arms, resting his hands gently against the pristine white fabric. The white uniform was absurd, a target painting him as important among a sea of dull green, but one did as one must when trying to effectively reform a scattering Empire. He would prefer his old uniform, but the stark black Chiss Fleet uniforms made the Imperials as a whole nervous. As prejudices would fade, they would adjust. The _Chimaera’s_ crewneeded to be familiar with Chiss ways, as he hoped that one day, the familiarity would spread to all vessels in the Imperial fleet that he drew to his banner. Director Isard might hold Coruscant, but he was going to make sure that the might of the Imperial Navy belonged to him.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo forgot all his grievances with uniforms, politics, and species prejudice when There’tona’laluon straightened. He was holding out two black metal rods in his hands. The rods were open on one end, enclosed on the other, and had a full control panel inset on each side.

He accepted each from his Lieutenant. There was a tight sort of joy in his chest, one he did not often feel. He was holding a work of art in each hand, of a craft that a foolish dead Emperor had made all but extinct.

“Lightsaber hilts,” Captain Pellaeon murmured, gazing down at the black rods. “Not quite to the old standard, but I have no doubt that lightsabers are what they are.”

“Do they still function?” Mitth’raw’nuruodo let his thumb slide down the smooth metal, avoiding the control panel. Lightsabers were heavier than he’d suspected, but not so heavy as to be awkward.

“I was told the prisoner did not demonstrate their use. _Chrysci Callav’ere’nalon_ —I mean, Captain Averen was told by the prisoner to ensure they came into your hands,” There’tona’laluon said.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo nodded. Whoever this mystery prisoner was, he had definitely blundered upon the right sort of bait to attract his attention. “Captain,” he said, holding out one of the hilts. “I understand that you served with Jedi during the war preceding the Empire’s formation.”

Pellaeon was frowning, turning the device from side to side as he studied it. “I never held one, sir, but I was told the controls were simple enough. It was the use that provided the difficulty. Ah, there we are.” He held out the black hilt, open end pointed away from them all, and ignited it.

A hush fell over the entire bridge as the emerald green blade emerged. Mitth’raw’nuruodo barely restrained a sigh of pleasure. Beautiful. He had seen Vader’s weapon before, but that lightsaber had been utilitarian, its red beam unsatisfying, and seemed weak in comparison to this one.

Mitth’raw’nuruodo let his gaze flicker around the room, intrigued. The Empire might claim to be anti-Jedi, but he was not the only one fascinated by the sight of the weapon.

“Captain, please have your lieutenants take over the task of consolidating our data on fleet personnel and resources. I think we should greet our guest.”

Pellaeon extinguished the blade. It was almost a disappointment to see it disappear. “He could be dangerous, sir.”

“Perhaps, but I am not without protection.” He had a contingency measure in place, but he had not yet introduced that measure to his new Captain. Perhaps it was time to rectify that. “Bring me your intriguing prisoner, Retonal. I look forward to meeting him.”

“Admiral.” The Chiss lieutenant dropped his head in a brief nod of acknowledgement and spun on his heel.

“I rather doubt it’s a Jedi, sir,” Pellaeon said in a low voice. “The Emperor and Vader were too thorough at destroying the old Order.”

“And yet, there is that young Commander Skywalker among the Rebels,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said.

Pellaeon frowned. “I served with General Skywalker during the Clone Wars, Admiral. Perhaps that is really his offspring, perhaps it is not, but one Jedi does not a threat make.”

“Do not pay such tribute to Imperial propaganda that you discount your own experiences, Captain,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said. “I do not wish to hear tired bylines.”

Pellaeon inclined his head, accepting Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s point. “What _experience_ told me, Admiral, is that a lone Jedi could be the most dangerous of all. However, I still maintain that I doubt we are going to meet a Jedi.”

“There were Jedi aboard that flight. There could have been survivors.”

“Then why wait this long?” Pellaeon saw the expression on Mitth’raw’nuruodo’s face. “You don’t believe that.”

“No. It was just conjecture, an exercise meant to convince you to share your true opinions with me.”

“So noted, sir.” Pellaeon frowned. “Even if it’s not a Jedi, I have to applaud this man’s method of attracting attention, not to mention his potential mechanical skills. He might prove a useful ally, or perhaps an able-bodied, intelligent officer.”

“Now you are thinking beyond the narrow confines of Fleet doctrine,” Mitth’raw’nuruodo said, pleased. “And if he is a Jedi, Captain?”

“The laws of the Purges are still in effect, since they were never officially rescinded.”

“Mmm.” Mitth’raw’nuruodo clasped his hands behind his back. “At their absolute worst, the Jedi were capable military commanders. At their best, they were military geniuses. I believe that Emperor Palpatine was very, very rash to have eliminated a potential tactical advantage in such a thorough and unpleasant fashion.”

“Sir.” Pellaeon's voice was terse. He still had the same reaction of any other commander when hearing their dear dead Emperor’s actions criticized. Pellaeon’s saving grace was that he listened, and he learned, even if he did not agree.

“Would you order him killed?”

Pellaeon hesitated. “If he proved to be a threat? Yes. However, I am capable of recognizing that the Purges are losing popularity among the citizens of the Empire.”

“A wise answer.” Mitth’raw’nuruodo considered the coming meeting with yet another quiet thrill. Matching wits with a potential Jedi. Sometimes a man’s desires came true, after all.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Gilad Pellaeon’s first thought upon seeing the prisoner was that he was looking at a ghost.

The prisoner, brought in by two of Thrawn’s Chiss officers, was disheveled but visibly unconcerned about the prodding of Chiss weapons, or the binders encircling his wrists. His hair was shorn close to the scalp, but it was still easy to tell that it had been a long time since the man had seen the inside of a proper ’fresher. He also seemed to be no more than thirty Standard, which wasn’t helping Pellaeon to shake the ghostly impression.

Pellaeon considered himself capable of maintaining a neutral expression in the most trying of circumstances, a practice honed by exposure to the Imperial Court. His new Admiral continually proved that Pellaeon’s skills had either deteriorated, or he had never been as unreadable as he’d hoped.

“You recognize him, Captain,” Thrawn said, after the two Chiss had departed. Their prisoner was seemingly ignoring them both, his gaze tracking around the Admiral’s command room to take in the Admiral’s belongings. Pellaeon had never been well-versed in the arts, but even he knew that the Grand Admiral’s collection was superb—and he also suspected that the Thrawn had revealed only a slight portion of his finds to Imperial eyes.

“I do.” Even the blasted scar was correct. “However, I remain unconvinced as to his identity.”

“Why?”

“General Skywalker died when Order Sixty-Six was issued,” Pellaeon said, watching the man for any telltale reaction.

Their prisoner just smiled. “From a certain point of view, that’s exactly what happened.”

Thrawn was resting his chin on one hand, expression unreadable. “General Anakin Skywalker, Jedi Knight of the old Jedi Order. Responsible for the tactical victories of the First Battle of Bothawui, the Battle of Muunilinst, the orbital Battle of Ryloth, a great deal of the Umbara Campaign, the Cato Nemoidia Incursion, the Battle of Coruscant, and the destruction of the so-called Dark Reaper.”

“You missed a few.” There was a distinct _c_ _lick_ before the prisoner pulled the binders off, tossing them carelessly over his shoulder.

Pellaeon winced at the clatter of metal striking the floor. “That can be done without the Force, you know,” he said.

“Sure, you can,” their prisoner agreed, “but I don’t have that kind of patience.”

“Apparently not,” Thrawn murmured. “If you are indeed him, what is it that you want with the Empire?”

“With the Empire?” Skywalker looked surprised. “Not a damned thing. Mostly I just wanted the hell off of that rock you stranded _Outbound Flight_ on.”

Thrawn didn’t move, even though Pellaeon turned to stare at him in surprise. “I did not place _Outbound Flight_ anywhere.”

“Would it have wound up in the Redoubt on that half-dead rock if you hadn’t shot it down?” Skywalker countered.

“That is not impossible, but highly improbable,” Thrawn said. Pellaeon resolved to pay much closer attention to Thrawn’s ideas of preventative measures—he remembered _Outbound Flight_ as a colonization mission, not a military agency.

Skywalker clasped his hands behind his back. “Close enough, then, isn’t it?”

“Diplomatic slant.” Thrawn’s neutral expression was slowly becoming one of intrigue. “I was not aware that you had any sort of interest in diplomatic ventures.”

“I was raised by one of the Republic’s premiere diplomats, but all anyone really remembers is the mayhem.” Skywalker was almost matching Thrawn’s studious air, in such a manner that Pellaeon felt unexpectedly chilled. By the Emperor’s soul, he didn’t think the Fleet could take two personalities such as Thrawn’s.

“If you are indeed General Skywalker, then you would readily admit that there is a very good reason for that,” Pellaeon said.

“Yeah, I do kind of wonder sometimes what my career would have been like if Palpatine hadn’t orchestrated the fucking war.”

Thrawn straightened in his chair; it took a great deal of self-control for Pellaeon not to surrender to stuttering indignance. “Excuse me?”

Skywalker looked from Thrawn to Pellaeon, then back to Thrawn again. “Huh. See, I expected the Captain not to have figured that out, but I’m surprised that you never noticed. I thought you were smarter than that.”

“Really.” Thrawn’s stare was glacial. “And what do you think you know of me?”

Skywalker turned away, pacing down along Thrawn’s command room with a slow, deliberate air that was extremely mindful of something he’d witnessed before. Pellaeon couldn’t recall what it was, but he knew it was unpleasant.

When Skywalker finally spoke, it wasn’t of Thrawn at first, but of him: “Gilad Pellaeon. Born on Corellia in Republic Year 5180, but raised on Coruscant. Accepted into the Raithal Naval Academy at age fifteen by forging his documentation to make himself Core legal, graduated with honors, went straight to a career in Judicial. By the time Judicial Forces was folded into the Republic Navy, he was captain of the _Leveler_. When the Republic military became the Imperial Navy, he was appointed Executive Officer of the _Chimaera_ , where he served for twenty years without a single promotion.”

Skywalker paused in his recitation. “Not because you were incompetent, by the way. People who were both exceptionally competent _and_ capable of inspiring a great deal of loyalty always made Palpatine leery. He refused to grant them more power than they had already attained.”

Pellaeon tried not to shift and betray his unease. “I was happy to serve in any capacity.”

“Uh huh,” Skywalker said, presumably unimpressed by Pellaeon’s reasoning. “You re-earned your captaincy when Calo Drusan proved himself to be a complete idiot. I’m assuming, given that it’s Thrawn sitting there and not a Vice Admiral, that you took full command of the _Chimaera_ during the Battle of Endor.” Skywalker looked at him. “What’s bugging me is that I know there would have been a serious lack of competent and experienced Fleet commanders after Endor, but you’re still a captain. Weren’t you ever offered a promotion?”

Pellaeon lifted his chin. Whether Skywalker meant it to be a negative assessment of his character or not, he still had no right to any such explanation.

Thrawn’s gaze settled upon him like a leaden weight. “I would like to hear that answer.”

His commanding officer was a different story. “No.” Pellaeon glanced away, focusing on the wall in front of him. “Not once.”

Skywalker seemed to sigh, and resumed his pacing. “Great, so Pestage and Iceheart are both idiots. That’ll be fun.”

“Any decent slicer would be able to retrieve such information on Captain Pellaeon.” The red glow of Thrawn’s eyes was temporarily enhanced by the shadow Skywalker cast over his features as he walked by. “I want you to impress me.”

Skywalker smiled. “Mitth’raw’nuruodo, born in 5185 within the boundaries of the Chiss Ascendency—most likely on Csilla. By the age of twenty, he was the youngest Commander of the Chiss Expansionary Fleet, in command of the dozen or so ships that made up Picket Force Two. Attacked and destroyed the _Outbound Flight_ on the suggestion of then Chancellor Palpatine.”

Thrawn frowned. “Darth Sidious.”

“That’s who I said, yes.” Skywalker halted. “But you already knew that Sidious and Palpatine were the same person.”

“I suspected,” Thrawn countered. “I was never granted confirmation.”

“Yeah. Wouldn’t do for his loving constituents to find out the Emperor was a Sith Lord.”

Pellaeon couldn’t decide whether to grind his teeth or to call Skywalker out on what had to be a blatant lie. He looked down at Thrawn, but the Grand Admiral was only watching their prisoner with a neutral expression.

Orchestrated the war. Sith Lord. Pellaeon did not like the fact that both accusations fit the Emperor’s history and personality very, very well.

Skywalker started walking again. “The career of Commander Mitth’raw’nuruodo ended in exile in 5212, not long before the end of the Clone Wars. He was later found at the edge of the Unknown Regions by Admiral Voss Parck of the _Strikefast_ , and introduced to Emperor Palpatine in the fifth year of the new Empire. He was inducted into the Imperial Fleet and progressed through the ranks quickly enough that he served as an instructor at Carida before his first command was granted, something that happened only once in the academy’s history. Served on the _Vengeance_ under High Inquisitor Jerec, who I really hope is dead—” Thrawn made a noise that was either agreement or amusement “—before gaining his command as Senior Captain aboard the _Admonitor_ eight months after the Battle of Yavin. Ten months after Yavin, he was promoted to Vice-Admiral. Two years after Yavin, in Year 22, the Emperor would promote Vice-Admiral Thrawn to Grand Admiral in a secret ceremony that was, according to sealed records, witnessed by only one person.

“There were actually two witnesses: The Emperor’s Hand and primary assassin, Mara Jade…and Darth Vader, who was a lot more interested in the careers of high-ranked Fleet officers than he was generally given credit for.”

“Interesting,” was Thrawn’s only comment. Pellaeon glanced at him, curious, but refrained from speaking. He would find out soon enough if the information was accurate.

“With that promotion came full command of the _Admonitor._ The Empire’s newest Grand Admiral was tasked by the Emperor with mapping and subduing the Unknown Regions. He was also granted, as a mark of recognition and respect, second command over the Emperor’s Death Commandos.”

Pellaeon narrowed his eyes. He suddenly had a much clearer idea of what Thrawn’s security system might be. He hoped that the Commandos were…neater…than rumors had implied. It was always a terrible difficulty to remove blood from his naval uniforms.

Skywalker came to a half in front of Thrawn’s chair. “How am I doing?”

“You are very well-informed for a dead Jedi Knight,” Thrawn said. “How did you come by such information?”

“Aside from the fact that Pellaeon and I met during the war?” Skywalker’s smile was bitter. “I was in a…prime position to know all of it, though most people wouldn’t have recognized me. Sidious does not play nicely with his toys.”

“And that was what you were to him? A toy?” Thrawn asked.

“In a sense.” Skywalker’s eyes dropped down, looking at the pair of black-handled lightsabers resting on the arm of the Grand Admiral’s chair. “I’ll be taking those back, now.”

Thrawn gave him a cool smile. “I think not.”

Skywalker just looked amused. He held out his hands; both lightsabers shot into his palms. “I wasn’t asking,” he said, attaching both hilts to a belt that looked to have seen far better days.

“That was ill-advised,” Thrawn said. “Rukh.”

Pellaeon flinched when one of the shadows behind Skywalker took form and appeared right behind the man, holding a knife to his throat. “Ah. That would be the security system.” The commandos were not human, and also far more terrifying in appearance than he had ever been informed. They were also quite short—the alien had to stand on its toes in order to reach Skywalker’s throat.

Skywalker held very still, his arms half-raised in the air. “Hi there, Rukh. How's your mother?”

Rukh snarled. “You are a threat to my commander, and you will not—”

The alien paused, a look of intense disbelief crossing its features. Then it stood up on its toes, pressing in close, and proceeded to thoroughly sniff the prisoner's bare neck.

Skywalker's expression twisted into supreme discomfort. “That really tickles. I didn't realize that before.”

The commando drew back, spat something unintelligible, and released the prisoner. If Pellaeon had to categorize the look on its face, he would have dubbed it abject horror…something that was confirmed when the alien proceeded to prostrate itself at Skywalker's feet, its face pressed to the floor.

Pellaeon glanced at his commanding officer. Thrawn's cool disregard had been entirely replaced by grim-mouth dismay. That didn’t bode well.

“I have dishonored my clan,” Rukh said to the floor. “Please forgive me, _ary’ush_ ; my life is forfeit.”

Skywalker's eyebrows went up. “Shit. Look, no. No, it isn't. It's—” he broke off and then spoke in a language Pellaeon had never heard before.

Whatever Skywalker was saying seemed to be reassurance. The alien lifted its head; its mouth fell open, revealing sharp teeth, when it realized that Skywalker was kneeling in front of it. The alien uttered one long stream of guttural, panicked vocalization. It was a wonder the alien made itself understood at all. If Skywalker was speaking the same language, then it was quite pleasant without the alien’s grating voice.

Thrawn sighed. “Now this is something I was certain I would be able to avoid for the rest of my life.”

Pellaeon looked at him again. “Sir?”

“Our commanding officer returns, Captain,” Thrawn said in a soft voice. “Is that not correct, Lord Vader?”

There was steel in Skywalker’s eyes as he shook his head. “No. Not anymore.”

It took Pellaeon a moment to realize that Skywalker was not refuting what Thrawn had said. His spine stiffened, posture going proper, ramrod military straight. Now he knew what Skywalker's pacing had reminded him of. “Sir. Lord Vader.”

Skywalker all but rolled his eyes in response. “I tell you guys that I don't want a damned thing to do with the Empire, and still there is saluting. For fuck's sake, knock it off, okay?”

Pellaeon felt muscles in his face twitching at the instruction. That sounded a hell of a lot more like Skywalker than Vader ever had. “Considering that the entire Fleet is still terrified of your existence, it will not be that easy to do as you suggest. Sir.”

“What is it that you _do_ want, then?” Thrawn asked.

Skywalker hesitated before looking down at himself. “Clean clothes and a working ’fresher? Seriously, I've been stuck in these clothes for two years and I'd really like to burn them before they gain sentience.”

Pellaeon frowned. “Then you cannot be who the Grand Admiral has named you to be. Vader only died a year and a half ago.”

Skywalker grimaced. “Yeah, that's an entirely different complication.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

Thrawn took him back to one of the Chiss-crewed ships, one of three in a cluster that were sharing that little corner of space. Anakin didn't mind; Pellaeon had been entirely, justifiably freaked out by his supposed resurrection, and he couldn't blame the man. He really didn’t want the Fleet to think Vader was alive, either. Pellaeon could be discreet, but Force knew what anyone else would do with that information.

He was surrounded by Chiss, none of whom were speaking Basic, but Anakin had always read intent well enough. Thrawn had either told them “respected guest” or “valuable prisoner” and aside from careful, full-body inspections from glowing red eyes, the Chiss were utterly polite.

The feel of hot water on his skin was enough to make him revert to childhood Huttese, evoking gods whose existence was dubious, at best. _Outbound Flight's_ survivors were nice enough, including the one who had tried to shove a dead Jedi Master's lightsaber into his face, but there was a serious lack of amenities at the crash site.

Also, every single one of them was suffering from intense cabin fever, which had made trying to build a long-range transmitter an exercise in frustration. They'd repeatedly stolen the parts until Anakin had threatened to start hanging people upside down from the top of the Dreadnaught and leave them there.

His clothes were gone when he came out of the shower. His boots and belt had been left alone, though both direly needed replacing. The black-handled lightsabers hadn’t been touched, and no one had found the other two lightsabers stuffed into his boots—relics of long-dead Jedi of the fallen Republic.

He’d been given an unadorned version of the Chiss Fleet’s black uniform. He dressed and then stared at himself in the mirror. Despite the scar over his eye, and his extremely short hair, Anakin was reminded of nothing more than his son, wearing black with a similar military cut, standing strong before the Emperor and refusing to break.

He let his head fall forward to thunk against the glass. His son. Gods, his _kids._ For two years, he’d been able to do nothing except feel the echoes of their presence in the Force, while keeping his own identity tightly shielded. He wanted to see them again in the worst way. He also thought it might be a terrible idea, and that was aside from the fact that Captain Solo would probably shoot him.

His breath fogged the mirror; Anakin wiped it clean, taking a moment to be grateful that there was only a single scar on his face. Once, there had been many.

He’d remembered it wrong, back in the Well of the Dark Side on Mortis. He hadn’t been twenty-four; he had just turned twenty-three, the day after the Battle of Coruscant.

Padmé’s pregnancy, learning of their baby—he couldn’t have begun to imagine a better birthday gift.

The next day had been Order 66.

_If what you told me is true, you will have gained my trust, but for now, remain here._

_Dammit, Mace,_ Anakin thought, feeling tired and wrung out. He was older, and wise enough now to realize that Mace had been thinking of conflict of interest, of not wanting Anakin to bear witness to the arrest of a friend. He’d just chosen a damned stupid way to go about it. Anakin could see reason; Vader had seen only betrayal, over and over again.

There was a different Chiss waiting outside, a female officer with her black hair bound in a tight coil at the back of her head. Anakin smiled and nodded a greeting, and was almost certain he received an eye-roll in return before she gestured for him to follow. The officer took him to a large room that looked like even more of a museum than the admiral’s personalized command room on the _Chimaera_.

“Stay here,” the Chiss said in halting Basic. “ _Ahnsytano_ Mitth’raw’nuruodo will join you. Touch nothing.” She spun on her heel and left before Anakin could say anything else.

Anakin shrugged. “Hadn’t planned to, thanks.” There were two doors aside from the one he’d entered by, a few fabric-covered chairs, and a table in the center of the room with seating for four. She’d shown him directly to Thrawn’s private quarters. Anakin had a feeling that it was either meant to be a conveyed honor, or an attempt at scoring points and currying favor.

There were also four Noghri in the room, stationed in each corner and almost unnoticeable in the shadows. Rukh must have warned them via comm; Anakin was swarmed by ecstatic men and women the moment the door closed behind the Chiss officer: Sekh, Mellakh, Whemmha, and the youngest, Khabarakh, who had still been an adolescent the last time Anakin had seen him.

Anakin really wanted them to stop calling him _ary’ush_ , but that was going to take so much cultural maneuvering that he wasn’t sure he could manage it. Maybe Obi-Wan would have some ideas—if he could actually _find_ his Master.

The Noghri were a lot more tactile than he remembered, too. The pile of hugging was kind of nice after _Outbound Flight’s_ bucket of crazy.

It only took one simple request to get them all back in their corners to be terrifying bodyguards again. Anakin was unnerved by it, but the damage had long since been done by Vader, who had been all too happy to accept an unlimited life debt from an entire species. The only thing he could do now was try and figure out how to mitigate it.

He made his way around the large room, checking out each piece of art in turn. He wasn’t big on art, really, but a lot of it was pretty, or had fabulous detailing lines that his mechanical inclinations really appreciated.

Then he found the painting on the far wall. It was a style that had been famous just before the war started. Vibrant colors shimmered as the paint was kept in perpetual movement, animating and giving the feel of life to what was otherwise a still, flat portrait.

His fascination did not mean that he lost his awareness of the rest of the room. “I would literally give you my right arm for this.”

Thrawn sounded amused. “What use have I for anyone’s limbs?”

“Well, it’s a unique piece of biomechanical machinery,” Anakin said, his eyes still roving over the details of the painting. If it wasn’t life-sized, then it was a near thing, so much that individual strands of hair were easy to discern. “I was taught that uniqueness was sometimes the only thing that made an object qualify as art.”

“Uniqueness?”

Anakin rolled up the sleeve of the uniform, turning to present his bared arm to Thrawn. The black gleamed; the gold reflected the light. In its own way, it was as elegant as any piece of jewelry. He’d put a lot of time and effort into making it so, wanting something that Padmé would be willing to look at, willing to touch, until he figured out how to get the artificial recognition-relay system to work with proper synth-skin.

“I see.” Thrawn’s neutral expression didn’t quite disguise his fascination. He looked at the painting. “Senator Padmé Amidala of Naboo and the Chommell Sector, painted just months before the First Battle of Geonosis. Is it the artist or the subject matter that captures your attention?”

“Oh, the painting’s fine,” Anakin said, tugging his sleeve back down into place. Rukh, he noted, had joined Khabarakh in the corner closest to the door. “It’s the subject matter I’m interested in.”

“Ah. Who was she to you?” Thrawn asked.

Anakin swallowed when his throat felt too thick. “My wife.”

Thrawn eyed him, curious. “I was not aware that the Senator had wed. Or that Vader had, for that matter.”

“Well, we didn’t exactly want everyone to know,” Anakin said, heaving out a breath and forcing himself to turn away from the painting. “For varying reasons.” Obi-Wan had thought that Anakin and Padmé were keeping it a secret for each other’s safety, and to a certain extent, that was true. It had also been because he’d married while still a Padawan, against the Code. Then it had remained secret because Palpatine somehow convinced them both that the Order would expel him—not to mention Padmé’s own difficulties among the Naboo.

Anakin still had no idea how Palpatine had done that. He didn’t even remember it happening, just that at some point, concern had become fear and belief.

“Perhaps we might be able to discuss a trade,” Thrawn granted him. “But first, dinner.”

Anakin tried not to immediately lunge for the table when serving droids began loading it with a still-steaming meal. “Yeah, would it be improper if I said that I’d also give you my arm for free access to your ship’s kitchens?”

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. “I take it the colonists in the Redoubt have not done well to feed themselves.”

“I’m pretty sure some of them have resorted to eating rocks.”

Thrawn wasn’t impolite about it, but Anakin felt fascinated eyes on him throughout most of the meal. “What?” he asked at last.

“About half of the contents of this meal are considered indigestible by all but Chiss standards,” Thrawn said. “Thus, my curiosity.”

Anakin considered it. “What do you know of my history? _My_ history, not Vader’s.”

Thrawn shook his head. “Not much. The original Jedi Archives still exist, but I had the distinct impression that certain information was inaccurate.”

“I spent the first ten years of my life as a slave on the Outer Rim,” Anakin said bluntly. “Well, not quite ten, but close enough for it not to matter very much. Thirteen years of Temple life was not enough to overcome that kind of upbringing. Unless it’s actively trying to kill me or poison me, it’s food.”

Anakin didn’t think he was imagining a flicker of surprise in Thrawn’s eyes. It wouldn’t be easy to discern for anyone else, but Vader had spent a great deal of time learning to read Thrawn.

Besides, shades of red had translated very well through the mask.

“I have never been a slave, but my first years were spent in a similarly poor state,” Thrawn said at last. “I will admit that I never expected to find anything in common with Darth Vader.”

“Ruthlessness.” Anakin pointed at him with a fork. “Determination to see things to a desired end. A desire for power, though in your case I think that has a lot more to do with gaining the ability to accomplish your goals, not any real desire to rule over others.”

“You think not?”

“Oh, don’t get me wrong, you’re really good at ruling,” Anakin said, leaning back in his chair. Focusing on wordplay was going to have to be a substitute for the food coma his body desperately wanted. “But being good at something doesn’t mean you _want_ to do it.”

“I am surprised that you did not reference military prowess as something we have in common,” Thrawn said, without acknowledging his point.

“Well, you said Vader. The Emperor made sure that Vader wasn’t capable of that sort of ingenuity. Brute force, yes; subterfuge, no.”

“Indeed,” Thrawn murmured. “I am not yet sure why you insist upon such a difference, but very well: If you are indeed capable of such ingenuity, tell me why I remain in the Unknown Regions when the Empire is devoid of capable leadership.”

“You’re taking control over the Fleet, for starters, but slowly.” The smile on Anakin’s face was probably reminiscent of his Master. “There’s too much indoctrinated prejudice to overcome for you to gain control outright. The Fleet officers would mutiny, and that would fragment the Empire even more. You don’t want fragmented parts, but a cohesive whole.”

Thrawn nodded. “As would any astute commander of a military force.”

“But it’s not just that.” Anakin realized he was tapping the fingers of his right hand against his thigh and made himself stop. It wasn’t fidgeting, per se, but it could be misread as such. “You have vessels from the Chiss Fleet out here, and given that we’re technically not in Ascendency territory right now, I bet Command doesn’t know that you’re poaching their ships and officers. You have Chiss men and women working aboard your Imperial flagship, which implies a goal of familiarizing the _Chimaera’s_ crew with working not just with non-humans, but Chiss in particular.”

“And what would be the point of that?” Thrawn was gazing at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to bungle.

“Well, if you wanted control of the Empire, you would be wanting the loyalty of its military, because that’s always where the Empire’s true strength has been,” Anakin said. “But you don’t want control of the Empire’s political hierarchy. You’re smart enough to know you’d have to work the political angle as well to get that, but instead you’ve fallen off the radar to such an extent that I bet half of the Imperial Fleet doesn’t even know you exist.”

Thrawn inclined his head. “All of that is correct, but you still have not told me what you believe my goal to be.”

“Yeah, not certain about that yet.” Anakin frowned. “I suppose that depends on what you’re going to do to gain the Fleet’s loyalty.”

“Their morale has been all but destroyed since the Battle of Endor,” Thrawn said. “I plan to give them a victory that they now believe to be impossible.”

Anakin winced. He’d worried it would be something like that. “You don’t see it, but you’re still suffering from some of the same blind spots that the Emperor created in all of his minions, military or otherwise.”

Thrawn didn’t seem concerned. “Like what?”

“The belief that the Alliance is composed of nothing but rabble, that they’re creating disorder—and that the Alliance can actually be stopped.”

“They _are_ rabble, they _are_ creating disorder, and they _will_ be stopped,” Thrawn said, eyes narrowed.

“Wrong on all counts,” Anakin returned, trying not to sigh. “You’re making the same mistake that Tarkin did. Do you have bees on Csilla, Mitth’raw’nuruodo? Hornets?”

“We have a pollinating insect the length of my extended finger,” Thrawn said, demonstrating with his index finger. “They are passive unless provoked, in which case their sting can often be fatal. I understand your analogy, General, but do not see its point. Insect colonies can be wiped out.”

Anakin made a face. “Nobody’s called me General in a long time. That’s weird. Also, that last analogy of yours was really inappropriate, not to mention the fact that destroying Alderaan had the opposite effect that you’re going for.”

Thrawn rested his chin on his hand. “The destruction of a single hive does not prevent the rise of others.”

“I’m really regretting the bee analogy now.” Anakin shook his head. “Look, the Empire treated Core World citizens like gold, but crushed everyone else in an iron grip for twenty years. When Alderaan was destroyed, Tarkin lit a fuse to an explosive that will be spending itself for the next _century._ You could gain control of the Fleet, sure. You could go and stomp out the Alliance as it stands, and you might even succeed. I highly _doubt_ it, since I think you’re underestimating them, but hey, anything is possible. Two problems with that, though, and I think you’re aware of the first one.”

“Fear of the Fleet would provoke another rebellion.” Thrawn nodded. “That had occurred to me, but I was weighing fear against the idea that Imperial citizens might be more easily convinced of our less destructive impulses by demonstrating interspecies cooperation.”

“Oh, that would certainly help,” Anakin granted him. “But it wouldn’t be enough. For starters, the Alliance has claimed a lot more territory than you think—people mentally cast their allegiance in that direction after Alderaan, even if they could never publicly admit it. You want to give the Fleet a morale boost—hey, that’s great, and it makes for a hell of an effective fighting force.”

“Better than fear?” Thrawn asked, his eyes glinting.

“Way better,” Anakin said. “But it doesn’t matter if you have the happiest fucking soldiers who ever soldiered. You’d be attacking people who aren’t fighting for a government, but their _homes._ People fighting for their homes are vicious. They will burn you into dust and spit on the remains, and that’s if they win. If they lose, they’re still going to burn everything to the ground to make sure the victors get nothing but ash.”

“You believe people who have lived under the yoke of Imperial rule will never again submit to it,” Thrawn said.

“No, they won’t…” Anakin trailed off, grinning as realization struck. “And that’s your backup plan. This inter-Fleet cooperation stuff isn’t just about the Empire. You’ve got something else in the works. You don’t want to control the Empire. You want to replace it.”

Thrawn raised an eyebrow. “I shall neither confirm nor deny such suspicions.”

“Yeah, sure.” Anakin waved his left hand, amused. “But you should know, there is another great reason why you shouldn’t attack the Alliance.”

“Oh? And what is that?” Thrawn asked warily.

“My kids are on the front line of that little group of rabble. If you ever lift a weapon in their direction that isn’t raised in valid self-defense, I will kill you.”

“Vader made such threats often.” Thrawn stared back at him.

Anakin smiled. “Yeah, well. That’s not a threat. It’s a promise. I will fucking end you.”

“How very Sith of you,” Thrawn noted.

“Vader wasn’t _entirely_ of Sidious’s creation.”

“Hmm. Ruthlessness,” Thrawn said, smiling in acknowledgement.

Anakin shrugged. “Hey, look, if you want a less threatening reason, you really need to take a look at the Alliance’s tactics. The public claims about Alliance victories being due to luck were never true at all. That’s more Imperial indoctrination talking, and you’re better than that.

“I grew up listening to smugglers, and a lot of them had a saying: ‘Why beat them when you can join them?’ Granted, in your case, I think it’s more along the lines of, ‘Create a formal alliance between two governments and present a united front against whatever the fuck the Ascendency is so terrified of,’” Anakin said. “What’s better than a singular military force?”

“Two,” Thrawn admitted, intrigued, “with significant shifts in flight patterns and behavior between them, a difference great enough to present as a tactical advantage when facing an enemy on multiple fronts.”

“I knew there was a reason Vader liked you. Two fronts for defense, two for offense. Less chance for blind spots that way.” Anakin leaned forward and rested his arms on the table. “Don’t fight the Alliance’s mindset. Use it. Gain allies instead of enemies—be the kind of fucking leader that Sidious couldn’t comprehend being. Oh, and don’t follow my shitty example. Don’t kill your officers, just demote them.”

Thrawn’s smile was dry and cutting. “Demotions can be performed via airlock.”

Anakin paused and thought about it. “Okay, yeah, sometimes that’s a valid option, but try to reserve it for mutiny or murder.”

Thrawn’s smile was turning into a slow, thoughtful frown. “You are not the kind of man I expected you to be.”

“You only ever met Vader, and he was a fucking idiot,” Anakin said flatly.

“Despite your claims to the contrary, Vader was you.”

Anakin closed his eyes for a brief moment. “Yes and no. Not exactly. Vader was a lot less me, and a lot more of what the Emperor wanted him to be.”

“And what was that?” Thrawn asked.

Anakin gritted his teeth before replying. “A fucking puppet.”

 

Imperial Year 27: 2/2nd

Alliance-observed Old Republic Date 5239

Lothal

 

“I still say that someone should remain behind, in case we need a quick exit,” Hera said.

“I don’t disagree, but I gave Cypher a full count. He’s expecting all of us, not just some of us,” Ahsoka replied. “Kanan’s already unloading the speeders, and we can get back here quickly enough.”

Rex watched Ahsoka lace her hands together. “I’m with the Commander,” he said. “I really don’t think we should spook this guy any more than he already might be.”

Hera sighed. “All right. You win. Things on Lothal just have a bad habit of turning out worse than they should have been.”

“It’s been ten years. It might not still be that way,” Ahsoka offered half-heartedly. “Then again, it’s you guys.”

“That’s exactly what I mean.” Hera smiled in resignation before going to help her spouse.

“Nervous?” Rex asked, when he judged Hera was out of earshot.

“A bit.” Ahsoka huffed out an annoyed breath and crossed her arms. “I shouldn’t be! I don’t even think it’s him.”

Rex raised an eyebrow. “That message was really specific, Commander.”

“I know. I think it has to be someone who knew him really well, but…but it can’t be Obi-Wan.” Ahsoka glared at him. “Stop giving me that look. I’m not getting my hopes up.”

“You don’t have to,” Rex said, and picked up his helmet. “Just thought maybe I’d remind you that hope is sometimes the only thing we’ve ever had.”

“Fine.” Ahsoka grabbed her cloak and hurried after him. “I _hope_ it’s not a trap.”

“That’s the spirit.”

The bikes were already down on the ground. So was Ezra, who was kneeling on the dirt with a wide, happy smile on his face. “Feel better?” Ahsoka asked him.

Ezra opened his eyes, still smiling. “Yeah. It’s home!”

Zeb sniffed the air a couple of times and made a disgusted face. “Smells like a waste dump.”

“Lothal just needs cleaning,” Ezra said, patting the ground.

“A lot of cleaning.” Kanan was standing at the edge of the clearing illuminated by the _Ghost II’s_ lights. His eyes were narrowed, brows furrowed, and he looked as if he was scenting the wind. “The groundwater’s polluted. The air, too. Nothing that can’t be recovered from, but it still doesn’t feel very good.”

“You know what I sense?” Rex turned to look at Ahsoka. She was cloaked but not hooded, and her eyes were closed.

“What?” Sabine asked, tapping her fingers along the outside of her blaster’s holster. “Are we being watched?”

“Probably, but that’s not what I meant. I was looking for the people of Lothal, and what I sense is determination.” Ahsoka opened her eyes. “Not misery. Not desperation. Determination and _hope._ ” She looked at him and scowled. “Not a word, Rex.”

Rex gave her a wide-eyed, innocent look that made Ahsoka growl and tug her hood up into place. _Point to me, Commander._

Ahsoka rolled her eyes. _That still counts as words!_

Hera seemed more enthused, at least. “It would be nice to only have to worry about getting shot by Imperials.”

“Yeah, but…we left.” Ezra stood up and dusted off his trousers. “The rest of Lothal might still want to shoot us, anyway.”

“We’ll deal with that if it becomes an issue.” Kanan turned around to face them. “What Tarkin and Vader did to the Lothal is _not_ our fault, even if the Imperials spent the last decade trying to convince everyone on this planet that it was. Tarkin pulled that trigger and set up the blockade, and Vader knew we were already gone when he did it. If the Lothal are ready to kick the Imperials the hell off of this planet? We’re going to stay and help them do it, and this time, we’re not leaving until the job’s done.”

Wolffe came down the ramp, swearing under his breath. Chopper was right behind him, three of his helper arms out and waving in an agitated dance. “You’re still staying here!” he yelled at the droid, who stopped on the edge of the ramp and shrieked at them all.

Hera sighed. “Chopper, we talked about this. You’re keeping the ship on stand-by, just in case we need to leave in a hurry.”

Chopper lowered his arms and blatted.

“I mean it.”

“What took you so long?” Rex asked Wolffe, while Chopper made a show of dejectedly creeping back up the ship’s ramp.

“I needed a minute,” Wolffe said, shoving his helmet under one arm. _“Someone_ went and made an alteration to my armor without asking me. I could have used some warning on that, Wren.”

Sabine just grinned at him. “I wanted it to be a surprise.”

Rex noticed his brother’s reddened eyes. “Show me.”

Wolffe half-turned so that his right shoulder was visible. Rex reached out and touched the image of the wolf’s head that covered the whole of the shoulder plate. It wasn’t just gray paint on black; the face had ridges under his gloved fingers. Sabine had carved it into the armor.

“It’s good work,” Rex said at last, stepping back. The wolf’s head was starkly visible, and a hell of a giveaway if anyone ever learned the identity of the man behind the mask, but he suspected Wolffe didn’t give a damn. His brother had another one just like it on his old Republic armor.

Kanan, Ezra, Wolffe, and Ahsoka took the bikes out first, scouting the site for potential traps. Rex waited for the all-clear (or the bug-out signal) with his gloved right hand resting on the striped vambrace that shielded his left arm. There were thirty-six lines cut across the duraplating, like the strike of a multi-clawed animal. The lines were mirrored on his other vambrace; two more sets of thirty-six ran down the plating that protected his back.

Sabine had given them the armor, unadorned, about four years after they first met the Spectres. Gregor had still been with them, then, and the sight of Sabine’s gift had made his eyes light up in a way that Rex hadn’t seen in a long time.

Wolffe shook his head regretfully. “Wren, this is a nice thought, but we can’t wear the _beskar’gam.”_

“Sure you can!” Sabine had insisted.

“Look, it’s…we’re as genetically Mandalorian as you are, but we’ve never been claimed by the clans. We can’t wear Mandalorian armor, Wren,” Rex said, feeling a hollow ache in his chest. It would be nice to wear armor again. None of them could wear their old gear without immediately becoming a target; it was all stored under lock and key. The individual pieces they wore on occasion were from early Imp salvage, before stormtrooper armor degraded in quality to be all but useless.

Sabine glared at Rex and Wolffe. Gregor was spared, but he was studying the helmet with the specific head-tilt that usually meant a supreme effort at accurate language. “You’re both idiots,” she said. “You’re practically family at this point— _my_ family. As adopted family members, I’m the one saying you can wear _beskar’gam._ Besides, do you have any idea how much trouble I went to find unaltered duraplex with the proper _beskar_ framing?”

Rex and Wolffe traded glances. Wolffe had looked as rattled as Rex felt. He couldn’t remember anyone claiming them as family since the first year after Sixty-Six.

Gregor reached out and slapped Wolffe’s arm. “ _Family_ ,” he said. “Don’t…be…” His face screwed up from the effort of focusing long enough to pull the right word. “Impolite.”

“Don’t turn down gifts from family. Right.” Wolffe picked up one of the dull gray vambraces. “Surprised they’re not already covered in your signature touch, Wren.”

“I’m a Mandalorian artist, Wolffe. Who else is going to respect individuality?” Sabine smiled at them, pleased to have won the argument. “But if you give me a color scheme and instructions, I can make sure you like it.”

Wolffe hadn’t hesitated. “Gray on black. Not this kind—storm cloud gray. Jagged edges on the paint bleed.”

Sabine nodded. “I know exactly what you mean. What about you, Gregor?”

Gregor tapped on the gray helmet with all of his fingers striking at different times. The sound was a lot like a hard rain coming down on a helm. “Roses, Wolffe…space,” he said, and then looked extremely frustrated.

Sabine just smiled. “Red, gray, and black, right?” Gregor nodded. “I can do that. Rex?”

Rex took the vambrace that Wolffe was holding, turning it over in his hand. The weight was only a bit heavier than his original armor—definitely higher quality than even the first- and second-gen Imperial cast-offs.

“Might as well fit the theme, Wren. Blue on black, but two other things. I want one hundred forty-four stripes. Anywhere you want, just so long as they’re on the armor.”

“Sure, but why one hundred and forty-four?”

“That’s the amount of soldiers that make up a company,” Wolffe said. “Torrent was the best company in the 501st, not to mention half the military.”

“Most of the military,” Rex countered absently, still looking down at the armor he held. Torrent had been wiped out to a single man by the time Sixty-Six came down, and that brother hadn’t survived the chip going active. “One more thing, Wren. A design in gold.”

Sabine looked taken aback. “Gold is very, very specific, Rex.”

“I know.” Rex had smiled. “Gold’s for vengeance.”

The meeting point was only fifty kliks out from the _Ghost II’s_ landing spot, so the ride on speeders didn’t take long. Kanan gestured for them to park about a kilometer distant. Rex dismounted and knew Wolffe was doing the same thing he was—mental reset to military standard. The Spectres and the Commander were family, but if there was shooting to be done, old training and habits reasserted themselves.

It had been early evening when they arrived, and now it was well into twilight. Not the best conditions for clandestine meetings with strangers, but there would hopefully be less chance of Imperial observation.

“We’ll walk the rest of the way in. If it’s a trap, we can fight our way out and get back to the bikes. If it’s not a trap, we’ve got transportation to move on to wherever our contact might want us to go,” Jarrus said.

“If this _is_ a trap, you owe me money, Kid,” Orrelios told Bridger.

Bridger smirked. “And if it _isn’t_ a trap, you pay up.”

“Children,” Tano chided them, before pulling her hood up to hide her montrals and cloak her features. “The modulator is working all right?” she asked in Fulcrum’s electronically bland, muffled voice.

“You’re good,” Hera said, while Wolffe, Rex, and Wren were comm-checking.

“Your comm is tinny, Wolffe,” Wren reported.

Wolffe slapped the side of his helmet. “Better?”

“Yeah, and the next time my gear short-circuits, I’m having you punch it for me,” Wren said.

Rex smiled at the exchange. The intense familiarity of it all was making his damned heart ache.

That split the group in half, four of them going in helmeted (or hooded). Tano preferred her anonymity when dealing with unknown variables, and a man who knew Obi-Wan Kenobi well enough to repeat back little-known parts of his life was making them all cautious. Syndulla, Jarrus, Bridger, and Orrelios were pulling their usual brazen route. They would be the least recognizable to Cypher, no matter who he turned out to be.

Rex still hadn’t decided if he wanted it to be Obi-Wan, or if he hoped it wasn’t. Aside from a single note, they hadn’t spoken in a quarter-century.

People could change a lot over the years. They’d all once learned that the hard way.

It wasn’t a lone figure waiting to meet them, but an entire group. “Lothal’s leadership,” Syndulla murmured. The clearing was lit well enough to make out the shapes of people fairly well, even though Rex couldn’t see lights anywhere.

“The non-Imperial kind, I hope,” Wolffe said, popping the safety on his rifle. “Just in case.”

Jarrus was eying the group with barely disguised suspicion. “I really hope some good comes out of this.”

There were seven people waiting for them—six humans and one Rodian, all of them armed. The woman standing in the center was being deferred to as leader, given the posture of the others. A scarf was wrapped around her hair and partially hiding her face, which looked to be badly scarred on one side. There was a decent blaster riding her hip, and possibly another weapon hiding underneath that fluttering scarf. Rex suspected the woman standing next to her was a family relation. They looked too much alike, even though the second woman was at least a full head shorter than the leader, and bore a scowl in contrast to the other’s cool repose. Her blaster rifle was one of the high-powered new makes that you could barely get ahold of because the smugglers kept stealing them all. The freckle-faced blonde girl next to her was holding the same type of rifle, but there were also at least three charge packs tucked in along her belt. That one would bear watching—she carried her weapon as if she ate, lived, and breathed like a professional soldier.

The Rodian had a bad scar across one eye, and stood like he was entirely unimpressed with them all. There was a blaster on his hip, like the leader, but he carried another hold-out strapped to his leg. The grizzled, grey-haired bear of a man was the right age to be a Clone Wars veteran; he smiled in that bright-eyed way that suggested he should have possibly seen a shrink about ten years back.

The two humans bracketing the line of seven set off all of Rex’s instincts and had him tightening his hands on his rifle. They were both exceptionally dangerous, to the point of making the blonde girl seem harmless. The woman was copper-haired, with glittering eyes and a hard set to her mouth. She was wearing combat leather with a loose fit, designed to hide as many weapons as possible. She also had a blaster at her hip, two small hold-out blasters on her arms, and at least three knives, along with some other sort of weapon tucked into her boot.

 _Lightsaber._ Rex felt his stomach sour. _Please do not be a fucking Inquisitor._ They’d damned well had enough of that lot.

The man opposite her caught his eye in a way that the others hadn’t, something more than his standard assessment of danger. He was dressed like a hard-up smuggler in brown and black, maybe a few centimeters taller than Rex, and wore matching blasters in a cross-draw position. Accurate firing with that method wasn’t an easy feat to accomplish, not without a hell of a lot of practice. He had long black hair gathered into a tail, and some of the coldest, ice-blue eyes that Rex had ever seen on a human. He also had at least five knives on him, and had the same outline of a lightsaber in his boot.

 _A Jedi,_ Rex thought, despite the callous expression on the man’s face. That could explain a lot about the coded message, even if he didn’t recognize the man.

The copper-haired woman didn’t present like a Jedi, though. Maybe the Lothal had picked up someone who’d found herself a dead Jedi’s lightsaber.

“Welcome to Lothal,” the woman in the scarf announced, once the Spectres were in speaking distance. “Or should I say, ‘Welcome back to Lothal,’” she continued, nodding at Bridger.

“Thanks,” Bridger said, brows furrowed. “I know you, don’t I?”

The group’s leader smiled. “We’ve never met, but you might have heard of me before the blockade.”

“I was under the impression that Cypher would be meeting us,” Tano said in her Fulcrum voice.

“How do you know that _I_ am not Cypher?” the woman asked, her visible blue eye glittering with amusement.

Syndulla gazed at her in excellent mimicry of the other woman’s expression. “We do know that Cypher is male. I’m not gender-prejudiced, but you appear every inch a human female.”

“You would be correct on both counts. My name is Silver Greene,” the woman said, and Bridger gasped.

“I totally knew it! You were an actress—you were supposed to be Core famous!”

Greene’s smile dimmed. “Perhaps I might have been. It’s good to be remembered for my old skills, though.”

“Where’s Cypher, then?” Jarrus asked, his hand resting on his hip. It was a casual posture, but his hand was in easy range of both blaster and lightsaber.

“He’s around,” Silver replied. “Given such a long period without contact, he felt it wisest to be cautious.”

“Paranoid, huh?” Orrelios grunted.

“Given the Empire’s stance on Jedi, can you blame him?” The Rodian sounded almost as humorless as he looked.

“Be nice, Hival.” Silver gestured to the woman next to her. “This is my sister, Grey.”

“Grey and Silver, huh?” Wren asked.

“Just wait until you meet our brother,” Grey said, her lips twitching upwards in a faint smile.

Silver pointed down the line. “With us stands Turkey—” the blonde girl nodded “—and Bret. Shining the pretty green light down on you all is my brother, who is with his team of snipers.”

Rex glanced down at the green laser light dancing over his chest plate. “Yeah. Hi, there.” He was too used to this shit for his heart to skip a beat, but it didn’t make him happy to have a sniper’s light shined on him.

“For fuck’s sake,” Wolffe growled.

Syndulla sighed in resignation. “We’re not pointing any weapons at you.”

“Trust me, we are aware. We’re merely making a point as to our position,” Silver replied, never losing a hint of her composure. “This is a meeting of good faith, so we expect our questions to be answered honestly.”

“Fair enough,” Jarrus said, “as long as you finish introducing your friends.”

Silver dipped her head in acknowledgement. “The woman is called Jade. The man is Ben.” The man identified as Ben waggled his fingers at them in a jaunty, mocking wave; Jade’s frown just got more pronounced. “It is now your turn for introductions, though Ezra Bridger is known to us. It is good to see a child of Lothal return. Have you earned your Knighthood yet, Ezra?”

Bridger shrugged. “Almost? We’re kind of still debating that.”

“I am Fulcrum,” Tano said, though she didn’t move or otherwise draw attention to herself. “That is our Mandalorian contingent. This is Garazeb Orrelios, Captain Syndulla of the _Ghost II_ , and Jedi Knight Kanan Jarrus.”

“Kanan Jarrus,” Silver repeated, looking thoughtful. “Tell me, Kanan: What lightsaber form did your Master specialize in?”

Jarrus was visibly startled by the question. “Uh—Form Three.”

Silver’s smile was gentle, but merciless. “You are a terrible liar, Caleb Dume.”

Jarrus drew himself upright, his eyes going flat and cold. “I haven’t gone by that name in a long time.”

“Well, at least you didn’t try to deny it,” Silver murmured. “My apologies; I meant no offense.”

“Kanan is just pissed off because his old name is still on Imperial wanted lists,” Wren said.

“How the hell did you know about it?” Jarrus asked, crossing his arms and glaring at the Lothal.

Silver tapped her temple with one finger. “I told you that Cypher was around, Kanan Jarrus. That question about your Master still stands.”

 _Oh, good. Another telepath._ Rex was very glad that all of them knew how to properly shield.

On their private comm channel, Wolffe got his attention. “You think this will turn sour?”

Rex glanced along the Lothal line without turning his helmet to give the gesture away. “No. Not at the moment, anyway.”

“Tell them,” Fulcrum prompted.

Jarrus sighed. “Form Seven. My Master was teaching me Form Three to begin with, but we never…we never got that far.” He dropped his arms back down to his sides, but Rex didn’t think he was going to go for a weapon.

“Then why lie?” Silver asked. She didn’t sound accusatory, just curious.

“The first time we met an Inquisitor who claimed to research me using the Jedi Archives, he said my Master was a Form Three specialist. I decided not to contradict him.” Jarrus smiled. “I never asked before he died, but I always wondered why he’d gotten that one wrong.”

“Because the Jedi Archives were scrambled via Councilor Protocol One-One-Seven-Nine-Zero-One-One,” Ben said, gaining everyone’s attention. His accent wasn’t quite Outer Rim flat—maybe Mid-Rim, but definitely not from the territories. “At the start of the war, we jokingly called it the ‘Fuck Everything and Run’ Protocol. It stopped being funny after Order Sixty-Six.”

“Are you sure?” Silver asked, without looking at Ben.

“Standing before us are three Mandalorians, one vetted Alliance spy, two Jedi, one of the last Lasats in the galaxy, and the daughter of Rebel leader Cham Syndulla.” Ben’s smile didn’t do much to melt the frost in his gaze. “I really don’t think we have anything to worry about.”

“What do mean, the Archives were scrambled?” Fulcrum asked. “Who are you?”

“I would have thought it a bit more obvious than that,” Ben said. “I’m Cypher. Nice to meet you, Balance Point.”

“And you as well, Keymaker,” Fulcrum replied smoothly. “I am surprised that I do not otherwise recognize you.”

Cypher was definitely amused by that. “Surprisingly enough, not a lot of people do.”

Rex told Wolffe to cover him, and then switched his comm back to speaker. “You don’t look much like Cypher.”

Ben took a step forward, giving Rex’s armor a brief examination. “And how would you know that, _burc’ya_?”

Now Rex could see it. It was the way Ben carried himself, the easy way he moved. “Because I know you.” Rex pulled his helmet off, revealing his face. “Sir.”

Cypher’s appearance didn’t change, but warmth lit his eyes, and his smile was a slow, lazy greeting. “Captain.”

Wolffe sighed. “Seriously, how in the hell did you two manage to make that sound like flirting?”

Cypher tilted his head. “Practice, I should think.”

“A lot of it, too.” Rex shoved his helmet under one arm. “You think you could drop the illusion? That’s getting kind of creepy.”

Both of Cypher’s eyebrows went up. “Creepy, indeed,” he said, and the Force Illusion disappeared like fog being burned off in sunlight. Rex heard Fulcrum let out a quiet gasp.

“Son of a bitch,” Wolffe muttered.

“Wow.” Bridger was impressed; Orrelios was trying to pretend he wasn’t.

Jarrus looked like he’d been kicked one too many times in the gut. “Master Kenobi?”

Kenobi nodded. “Hello, Caleb—though I guess it’s Kanan now, isn’t it?”

“What the hell happened to your eyes?” Rex blurted. Kenobi’s hair was the length the illusion had presented, the brilliant copper it had been at the start of the war—same with the beard, which was shorter and trimmed close. His voice, with the illusion gone, was spot-on Coruscanti. It was his eyes that didn’t fit; they were pale and washed out, almost devoid of color entirely.

“Poison,” Kenobi answered. “A virulent one.”

“You mean your eyes aren’t supposed to be that color?” Jade asked, eyebrows furrowing.

He shook his head. “No. They used to be blue.”

Silver rested her hand on one hip, giving Kenobi an amused smile. “I’m just glad you knocked off the accent. It’s been like listening to you gargle Outer Rim cock for the last hour.”

Kenobi rolled his eyes and looked back at her. “Silver Greene, you are an absolute delight.”

“That was actually terrible,” Wren said. “I like you already, Silver.”

“Soooo, uhm, since no one else is mentioning it, I’m gonna ask,” Bridger spoke up, an odd look on his face. “You’re supposed to be fifty Standard or something, right?”

“I’m _supposed_ to be in my sixties, yes,” Kenobi answered, a wry smile on his face.

“Then how come you look like you’re my age?” Bridger asked.

That gave Rex a bad start, causing him to look closer. Bridger was right—and Rex had no idea what that meant.

Kenobi didn’t reply. He was staring past Bridger and Jarrus, his eyes focused on something off in the dark beyond the clearing. “I really hope you all came to Lothal in the mood to shoot Imperials.”

“I’d be disappointed if I didn’t get to shoot Imperials,” Orrelios muttered.

“Are we _sure_ this isn’t a trap?” Jarrus asked, and Grey gave him a look of irritated disbelief.

Syndulla shook her head. “I told you so,” she said to Fulcrum.

Fulcrum wasn’t paying attention, her head cocked in a listening posture. “Are you certain? I don’t sense anything.”

“Neither do I,” Kenobi said, after giving Fulcrum an odd look, “but I can hear them. Black, how many squads?”

There was a crackle as a comm activated. “Six,” said the man on the other end.

“Six? Just six?” Kenobi looked miffed. “I’m insulted.”

“And two walkers,” Black continued.

“That’s more fucking like it.”

Hival swore in Rodian before switching back to Basic and glaring at Kenobi. “Would you please, please stop asking for them to send more Imperials after us?”

“Okay, fine, there are Imperials, and it isn’t a trap.” Jarrus drew his blaster. “Why the hell can’t we sense them?”

Kenobi turned his head to look at Jade. “Mara?”

Jade just looked grim. “He only taught that to the Adepts, Ben.”

“Fuck.” Kenobi reached down and pulled the lightsaber from his boot—not the one Rex remembered, but a leather-wrapped hilt with a blue sheen to the metal. Jade shook her head and copied him, but she didn’t seem happy about it as both of them attached lightsabers to their belts.

“What’s an Adept, and should we be leaving?” Bridger asked.

“Good question,” Kenobi said. “Black?”

“Not enough time to get to the bikes. They’re about a minute out. Oh, and there’s a transport coming in now, too—knock those numbers up to eight squads, plus whoever might be riding along in the walkers.”

“Guess we’re not leaving,” Wolffe said. “We get to shoot things after all, Zeb.”

Orrelios was grinning. “Been wanting some stress relief. Hera?”

“Even if I called Chopper now, he wouldn’t get the ship here before the squads hit.”

“Someone please tell me what an Adept is,” Bridger repeated in annoyance.

“A step below a Sith Apprentice, a step above the Inquisitors.” Kenobi drew both blasters. “Hival, get Silver out of here.”

“I can help, you asshole,” Silver protested.

Kenobi narrowed his eyes. “Silver, you do not have peripheral vision, and there is a chance that this fucker will be invisible. It’s going to be hard enough to keep everyone safe, so _fucking go with Hival!_ ”

“You owe me,” Silver grumbled, turning and heading off into the dark with the Rodian.

“So: an invisible Sith-trained Force user?” Fulcrum asked. Even the vocoder couldn’t disguise the grim amusement in her voice.

“Uh huh.” Kenobi glanced at Jade again. “You’re good?”

Jade rolled her eyes, waving the tip of her blaster in the direction of the oncoming Imperials. Rex could finally make out the distinct bass thump of walker feet coming down. “Just do something about those AT-ATs. Not all of us are capable of deflecting turbolaser blasts.”

“I thought blasters were uncivilized,” Rex said, before Kenobi could act on Jade’s suggestion.

“There isn’t a fucking thing civilized about war, especially this one.” Kenobi’s smile had a damn sharp edge, but there was something cold about it, too, like grief had refined the expression.

_What’s so civilized about war? What’s so fucking civilized about killing people?_

Rex nodded. “Just wanted to know one thing, then. What did you do to Grievous?”

Kenobi seemed startled by the question. “Ripped his chest plate off and shot him in the heart.”

“Huh.” That pretty much matched up with the reports Rex had seen on Kamino from the 212th before 66 came down. “What happened then?”

Kenobi shrugged. “He caught on fire. Excuse me.” He stepped backwards into a shadow—and completely fucking disappeared.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Mara was impressed when Fulcrum’s team not only turned up on time, but with the correct number of people. She liked prompt spies, especially ones that knew what to be honest about. It didn’t mean Fulcrum would be truthful about anything else, but at least no one was shooting at each other over a deliberate misunderstanding—at least not yet.

She did _not_ like the fact that the Alliance agent had brought two Jedi along. Mara hadn’t forgotten what Tanno’baijii had said about other Jedi and their inclinations towards stabbing the things that they didn’t approve of.

The Mandalorians were more interesting, and easier to dwell on. Two solidly built males and a tiny, slender female—the latter of which would be the most difficult to cope with, given that she was built for speed and agility.

The shell-shocked expression on Jarrus’s face was extremely funny.

 _Be nice,_ Ben chided her. Then the blue-and-black armored Mandalorian pulled his helmet. Jarrus might have looked shell-shocked, but Ben _felt_ that way through their new telepathic link.

He kept it off of his face—he handled it like the man’s appearance had been known of from the start. Mara’s teacher often acted the part of well-informed gutter trash, but then would come the occasional forays that proved he was indeed a diplomat of consummate ability.

Tanno’baijii would have danced verbal rings around the stiff-necked courtiers of her childhood, and he would have made them _like it_.

 _Someone you know?_ Mara asked.

 _Holy gods._ Ben sounded flustered. _Caleb is one thing, but I didn’t know that Rex was still alive._

 _This will be complicated, then,_ Mara surmised.

_I used to sleep with him, so yes._

Mara bit her tongue to keep from smiling, especially when Silver let loose with that gargling comment. She really enjoyed her friend’s entirely inappropriate sense of humor, as Silver employed it so rarely as to keep it fresh and interesting. Also, Ben had come close to stuttering, which definitely made it worth it.

 _I did not,_ Ben protested, just before his entire sense in the Force went taut. _Trouble._

 _I don’t sense anything,_ Mara said, an opinion mirrored by the Alliance agent as well as Jarrus. _Oh, no._ Three _Jedi?_

 _Perhaps,_ Ben said, but his voice sounded off. _If that is who I think it is, then I will need to be reminded that it is not actually acceptable to resurrect the dead just to strangle the life right back out of them._

Mara caught a lot more background information via their link than she expected. _Seriously, are you sure that your Order didn’t hate you?_

She appreciated Bridger even more when he insisted upon being informed about things he was not yet aware of. That was a good survival skill to have. _Tell me these people will be good in a fight._

Ben’s explanation about the Adepts and their ranking was not quite accurate, but Mara was pleased that he hadn’t outed the Hands’ existence. She didn’t want to be stabbed any more than he did. _They’re professionals,_ Ben said. _Rex is old army, Mara._

Mara resisted the urge to look at him in surprise. _I didn’t think there were any clones left in the galaxy._

 _Hence my shock._ Ben drew his blasters, his eyes going icy. Not quite Venge, not with Jedi around, but Mara could all but sense his influence. _I think the other Mandalorian is, too. You’ll like them. They are fucking good at what they do._

Mara rolled her eyes when Ben verbally confirmed her twice in less than two minutes, and backed it up with a mental query. _I’ll keep an eye out for that Adept,_ she sent, and then out loud said, “Just do something about those AT-ATs. Not all of us are capable of deflecting turbolaser blasts.”

_Your eyes can deceive you. Don’t trust them._

Mara allowed herself a smile. The Jedi looked so thrown about Ben’s effective dispatch of the Confederate general. _I had that lesson hammered in a long time ago, Tanno’baijii._

Ben disappeared into a shadow, doing his strange teleportation bit. She still hadn’t figured out how he did that, but she hadn’t given up trying, either.

“Uuuhhhmmmm.” Bridger’s face twisted up. “So, we’re all just going to ignore that whole disappearing thing, right?”

Rex had replaced his helmet, returning his voice to that gravelly electronic translation. “It’s usually safer that way.”

 _I’m already making plans to find a different place to bunk down,_ Mara said.

_I haven’t seen that man in thirty years, and you’re already trying to set me up on a date!_

Mara smirked and nailed the first incoming trooper with a disabling shot. _I doubt it’s dating that you would be doing._

 _You are terrible._ Kenobi fell silent; a moment later, Mara heard the telltale whine of an AT-AT’s hydraulics failing to maintain the behemoth’s balance. She used the confusion created by the echoing crash of its impact with the ground to take out half of the squad flooding into the clearing.

She ignored the banter of the other rebels, choosing to concentrate on the Lothal’s quiet, cool efficiency. Turkey and Grey finished off the first squad, and all three of them began work on the second. Bret was sheltering behind a rock, fiddling with a thermal detonator in case it was needed. She could hear the distinct cracks of Black’s sniper team reducing the number of stormtroopers before they could reach everyone on the ground.

At least the Jedi were good shots, even if they wouldn’t shut up. She’d been right about Fulcrum, too, given the twin lightsabers the agent was sporting.

There was a resounding, echoing boom that made Mara’s ears hurt, followed by a bright explosion of fire less than a quarter-klik distant. The second AT-AT had been far too close for comfort.

 _What did you do?_ Mara asked. If Ben could still talk, he wasn’t dead. It didn’t necessarily mean he was intact, but bacta existed for a reason.

_I think I nailed the power core by accident. Fuck—there are bikes coming in!_

“Bikes incoming!” Mara repeated the warning, pulling her lightsaber but not yet igniting it. She didn’t want to unless there was no choice. Druhl was already panicked about two Jedi on Lothal, and she didn’t think he would react well if he discovered that the count had gone up to five.

She’d seen two more decimated villages since her introduction to Fair Winds. That was quite enough.

“Missed the speedy buggers,” Black reported via comm.

“They’ve got shields!” the female Mandalorian shouted, after three shots proved ineffective against the incoming speederbikes.

“Oh, fuck it,” Mara heard the gray-and-black armored Mandalorian say, just before he raised his arm and clotheslined the first trooper off of his bike. Bret shouted indignantly as the bike tumbled into the rock wall at their backs and exploded.

“That works,” the Lasat rumbled happily, and took out the second bike’s pilot the moment he was in range. Then he stepped on the unfortunate trooper, whose armor cracked under the alien’s weight.

Mara didn’t like seeing the soldier die, but Grey was the one to voice her displeasure. “We try not to kill them, if it can be helped,” she seethed, while Turkey took out the knees of the next trooper in line. He fell face down, shoved his rifle to one side, and put his hands over his helmet to wait out the battle. He was either very smart, or he’d heard about the Lothal method of dealing with Imperials.

Jarrus didn’t turn away from the fight, but it was obvious he was angry. “What? Why the hell would you do something like that?”

“Because they’re people,” Mara informed him in a cold voice.

“They’re Imperials, and they’re trying to kill us!” Bridger retorted. “They made their choice!”

Mara shook her head. There was that famous black-and-white mentality Ben had warned her about. “Don’t be so naïve.”

A fourth speeder tore hell into the clearing, but didn’t make it in range of anyone’s limbs. Ben came out of the shadow of a rock face and grabbed the end of the bike. The bike spun around from the extra weight; Ben let go, and the bike crushed itself and its pilot on the same protrusion the first had exploded on.

Ben let momentum sling him back into their midst. He slid to a stop, one hand resting on the ground, bearing a huge grin on his face. “Down to three squads and that transport.”

“Don’t be a show-off, Boss,” Turkey said, changing out the power pack on her rifle.

The transport disgorged its passengers just out of their sight line. Mara sensed at least another full squad, plus a being with an air of authority. When they came into view, she recognized Commander Eross by his rank insignia and his particularly bushy blond mustache. The rebel group went from being almost separate from the conflict to being embroiled right in the middle of it. Twenty-four troopers and one commanding officer in green did their best to invade everyone’s personal space.

“Oh, fuck,” Ben whispered, just as Mara’s senses were all but overwhelmed by a strong sense of imminent danger/death. “It _is_ a trap.”

“What?” Mara, Jarrus, Rex, Syndulla, and Fulcrum shouted the question at the same moment, but there was no time for anything else. The sky above their heads turned as bright as daylight.

Mara heard Ben shout a warning, but lost the words to the sudden roar in her ears. He raised his hands and caught a gigantic burst of energy against an erected telekinetic barrier—all Mara saw before she was blown over by the force of the blast.

She rolled onto her belly and saw her teacher still on his feet. His hands were actually ablaze. It wasn’t fire, but his channeled strength in the Force.

“Ben!” Mara shouted. _You are not allowed to burn yourself to ash on my watch!_

 _Just stay down!_ he ordered.   The words were followed by a second blast, just as devastating as the first.

Turbolaser, Mara thought wildly, and then training and instinct corrected the assumption. This was aerial bombardment from a Star Destroyer. A turbolaser, yes, but one meant to blow apart entire ships apart, not the weaker offerings from a standard transport.

Mara had a second to glance around. Everyone else was on the ground, as well, either unconscious or staring at Ben as if he’d grown a second head.

Rex yanked his helmet again. He looked at Ben as the third blast hit, and then his eyes met Mara’s.

 _That man is insane,_ she mouthed.

The old clone grinned at her. _Yeah._

It was easier to focus on that than dwell on the fact that if Ben hadn’t reacted, they would all be ash.

The fourth strike wasn’t repelled. Ben’s chest heaved just before he pushed with his hands. The energy burst caught itself in a recycling arc before turning and racing straight back up into space.

Mara watched the sky, and felt a grim amount of satisfaction when there was an easily discernible bloom of fire in the darkness. She preferred not to kill men who had once been her allies, but that didn’t mean she was above poetic self-defense.

“Holy _shit,_ ” Bridger gasped.

“Watch your mouth, Padawan,” Jarrus said, but he was staring at Ben in something approaching worship.

Mara climbed to her feet when it became obvious that the destroyer was too busy dealing with its own problems to fire on them again. Ben lowered his hands, but otherwise he did nothing more than stand in place, a baffled look on his face.

She blamed her rattled nerves for not sensing the shot before it happened. The blast from a stormtrooper’s rifle struck Ben’s right shoulder, burning through his collarbone. He made a startled sound and fell back.

Mara felt rage kindle in her chest, even as the Force informed her that Ben was alive. That was not an acceptable outcome for the day. No one was allowed to hurt someone under her guard and live to tell about it, no matter whose side they fought for.

She didn’t get the chance to act. Neither did the Lothal, or the rebels. Commander Eross whirled on the stormtrooper first. His cap was gone, so it was easy to see the utter disbelief on his face. “Did you actually _shoot_ the man who just saved our lives?” Without waiting for an answer, he drew his pistol and shot the offending trooper in the face.

Turkey raised both eyebrows. “Whoa.”

“Now that was a little bit unexpected,” the female Mandalorian said.

Eross treated them all to a defensive glare. “Gods above and below, I can’t abide that level of stupidity.”

The Imperials still seemed stunned by what happened, and the commander’s desire for battle was absolutely gone. Mara went to her teacher, gritting her teeth at the idea that she’d almost failed at the job she was still officially assigned.

“Are you all right?”

“Ugh,” Ben muttered, and raised his left hand. Mara pulled him to his feet, watching to make sure he was going to stay there and not fall over. His right shoulder was a mess, but the wound was survivable and repairable. “I can’t believe I got shot again. That’s the second time this month.”

That was more like it. Mara smirked at him. “You deserved it. You shouldn’t have let your guard down.”

“Let my guard down—I just saved all our fucking lives!” Ben sputtered.

“You’re whining.” Mara was smiling and for once, did not care who knew it.

The Mandalorian clasped her hands together in a pose of absolute glee. “That was really, really _awesome._ ”

Ben blinked a few times. “I’m just glad it worked.”

“You’ve never done that before?” Bridger asked, wide-eyed.

“No.” Ben gave Bridger a curious look that was tinged with that same bafflement. “Have you?”

Eross coughed to gain their attention. “I hate to interrupt your, er, moment, but what now? I do not believe any of us have the heart to continue this little skirmish.”

Ben took a step and staggered before he caught his balance. “Well, _we_ are leaving. I’m not waiting around for that destroyer to recover, or for its friends to show up. You?”

“My commanding officer just tried to kill me,” Eross replied, eyes narrowing. “I’m going to mutiny.”

Ben nodded, as if he’d expected that answer. “Good luck with that.”

“Yeah.” Grey slung her rifle over her shoulder. Its tip was still glowing red. “I’d rather deal with you than Druhl, any day.”

“We shouldn’t even be on this worthless rock,” Eross muttered, and then glared at the nearest trooper, one with a sergeant’s mark on his armor. “Tell your men to gather up the living and the dead and get to the transport. We’re leaving.”

“Er. Sir.” The trooper hesitated. “Do we have to mutiny, too?”

“You do realize that Colonel Druhl used our locators to target and destroy the rebels, but meant to sacrifice us in the process, yes?” Eross asked bluntly.

“I’ve got kids. I don’t want to mutiny; I need the paycheck,” a corporal grumbled.

“Then just please avoid me until I’ve dealt with our colonel.” Eross sighed. “Move out, you idiots.” The stormtroopers haltingly began to follow the commander’s orders. Most of them seemed too baffled to do anything else.

“This is the weirdest ending to a battle with the Imps that we’ve _ever_ had.” Turkey looked at Ben. “Boss?”

“Call it, Grey,” Ben said.

Grey held up her left hand, three fingers upright and tight together. Off in the distance, Black whistled three times; the sound was echoed from Sergeant Travaill’s position. Lothal’s command structure went for their hidden speederbikes without another word needed, but Ben held back.

There was a time when Mara would have torn Ben Tanno’baijii a new orifice for turning his back on an enemy, but her new skills were all but screaming that the departing Imperial troops were no longer a threat. Something else _was_ ; she could feel it like an itch under her skin, that things were not quite right, but couldn’t pinpoint its location.

Ben gave her a brief nod, as if acknowledging her thoughts, before he walked over to the clone he’d called Rex.

The old soldier looked at him, one eyebrow raised. “You’re an asshole, sir.”

“I missed you, too,” Ben said, just before the clone reached out and slowly pulled him in for a hug. Mara drew in a breath and refused to think about Mandalorian weaponry and assassinations. If the embrace had pained him, Ben refused to admit it.

Ben made a noise that could have been a sigh. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”

“About any of us?” Fulcrum asked.

“You, especially.” Ben’s eyes narrowed. “We are going to be having a talk about that later.”

“You don’t get to yell at me, not after what you pulled on the Death Star,” Fulcrum retorted.

“Yeah. There was that whole pact about not faking your death anymore,” Rex said, after releasing Ben.

“Faking.” Ben’s expression went studiously neutral. “Sure. Let’s go with that.”

 _You’re going to have to tell us at some point,_ Mara said. Ben was very good at changing the subject whenever the Death Star and his supposed death was brought up.

 _Yes, and soon._ Mara caught a sense of resignation. _Oh, that’s going to be a fun conversation._

“Hey,” Bridger spoke up, “does anyone else feel like we’re forgetting about something?”

“Huh. Now that you mention it, yeah,” Jarrus said.

“Forgetting what?” Syndulla asked.

Mara could never quite say what warned her, when Ben asked her later. She simply became aware of the threat and acted—burying her lightsaber in what looked like thin air.

Thin air did not gasp. Thin air also did not offer resistance, lightsaber blade or not.

The Adept appeared to her eyes and senses all at once. He was full human, with gray-streaked brown hair, yellow eyes, and the unhealthy skin of someone who’d lived too long in a damp cave. He was also holding an assassin’s wickedly curved knife in his hand, still outstretched in a move that would have taken Mara’s throat out if he’d completed the swing.

Mara’s lightsaber was embedded in the center of his chest. If the Adept fell, he would partially bisect himself.

She was a bit unnerved by the fact that he was still alive.

Ben was eying the Adept with cool curiosity. “Good job, Padawan.”

Mara glared at him. “I hate that word.”

“Too bad.” Ben plucked the knife out of the Adept’s loosening grip with the Force and called it to his hand, studying the edge. “Well, aside from the fact that he tried to kill you, there is a toxin chemically bonded to the metal.”

“Lovely,” Mara said, grimacing. If the Adept followed protocol, the toxin would not limit itself to being lethal. The Emperor had been fond of a wide range of poisons. Death was usually the kinder option.

Orrelios’s ears were trying to go flat. “That’s weird. I’d forgotten all about that Adept fellow you mentioned.”

Bridger nodded. “An Adept who is currently impaled on a lightsaber and _not dying._ ”

“Looks like he wants to say something,” the other Mandalorian male said.

“It’s too bad that it’s impossible to talk when your lungs are gone.” Mara jerked her lightsaber up and over to burn out the Adept’s heart. He finally slumped, the light in his eyes fading. She drew back her lightsaber before his body could slide through it, and then took his head off for good measure.

Bridger, Syndulla, and Jarrus winced. “Was that really necessary?” Jarrus asked.

“Yes,” Mara and Ben replied at the same time.

“We have a history of needing to kill the same Sith Apprentices more than once to make them stay dead. I’d rather not chance it, thanks,” Ben said.

Mara shut down her lightsaber. “He tried to kill me.” As far as she was concerned, that was reason enough to behead the man.

Worry about renewed bombardment by the destroyers in orbit finally prompted them all to move away from the battlefield. Turkey and Grey were mounted up and waiting with the last two remaining bikes.

“Ours are a klik that way,” Jarrus said.

“If the Imps didn’t find them,” the female Mandalorian pointed out.

Syndulla held up her comm. “We’ll just call Chopper to come get us. We can pick up the bikes on the way. Where should we meet you?” she asked Ben.

Ben rattled off the string of coordinates that would take the rebels to the cave where the _Figment_ resided. There was enough room for another ship if the rebels were into economic transports; otherwise, Mara had no idea where they would hide a second ship.

The female Mandalorian finally removed her helmet, revealing a woman in her twenties with brown eyes, skin a few shades lighter than Rex’s, and hair that was dyed three different colors. “Eye-catching” was the most polite term Mara could think of to describe the effect. “That’s on the coast, right?”

“Sure is,” Grey said. “What’s your name, girl?”

The Mandalorian smiled. It was warm, friendly, and still didn’t disguise a slightly manic edge. “Sabine Wren.”

Fulcrum glanced at Wren and shook her head. “I guess I don’t really need this at the moment, do I?” Fulcrum’s voice changed as she spoke, becoming feminine as a vocorder disengaged. Then she pulled back her hood, revealing an adult female Togrutan with red skin and white markings.

The expression on Ben’s face was hard to describe, but Mara could at least say that it wasn’t murderous. “Ahsoka Tano, there is only one thing I would like to know.”

Fulcrum—Tano—was taken aback by Ben’s sudden declaration. “What’s that?”

“How have you been?” he whispered.

Tano flung herself into Ben’s arms. Mara ground her teeth against another urge to leap to his rescue, especially after she picked up on a jarring moment of pain from the blaster wound.

“Obi-Wan!” Tano gasped in a choked voice.

“Ahsoka.” Ben’s eyes were closed as he held onto the Togrutan as if she would disappear. “No, wait, it’s two things. At some point, I’d like it very much if you would explain whose body was on that pyre I lit.”

Tano stepped back in surprise. “You, and not…not Anakin?”

Ben shook his head. “Ahsoka, I was concerned that I was going to have to keep him from jumping in after you. He was not—he couldn’t—”

“Oh.” Tired grief marred Tano’s features. “I suppose not.” Then she gave Rex an accusatory look. “You never told me that!”

Rex shrugged. “Not exactly a happy memory.”

The other Mandalorian took off his helmet, revealing a white-haired clone. He had a bionic eye and a precisely trimmed beard that looked like direct opposition to the untamed hair on Rex’s face. “General,” he greeted Ben.

“Commander.” Ben smiled. “Nice to see you again, Wolffe.”

“Likewise, sir,” Wolffe replied. “For given values of you being dead and all.”

Ben ignored the dig, frowning as he pointed a finger at Tano, Jarrus, Wolffe, and Rex in turn. Then he looked down at his hand, four fingers up. “Yoda cannot fucking count.”

Tano’s eyes went comically wide. “Yoda is here?” Jarrus blurted. He still looked like he’d had one too many shocks in a row.

“In a sense,” Ben replied, and Mara bit back a smile.

Why should she be the only one to suffer?

 

*          *          *          *

 

The ride back to the Warren was uneventful. Ben’s expression was set, but Mara would have known he was distracted even without the telepathic link. She didn’t stare at him, and he refused to acknowledge that he was distressed, so everyone got what they wanted at the moment.

Mara still hadn’t decided if she liked this instantaneous mental connection, this training bond, as he’d called it. It was extremely useful in combat situations, and allowed for very swift communication, both things she approved of. It was the perceived lack of privacy that came with it, even though she knew her shields were excellent. Concentrated effort from a determined and powerful foe would still be a danger, but she was a student. She was still learning.

By the time Mara was done with her new training, no one and no thing would ever be able to enter her thoughts without express invitation.

She had become familiar enough with Tanno’baijii that she only shoved him to the left when he tried to veer right at the second corridor junction. Ben gave her a confused look. “I have to—”

“You have to go let Tamassa fix your shoulder,” Mara said, not surprised at all when he glanced down, realizing anew that he was injured. Being able to kill sensation to power through in a combat situation was also something she approved of, except for the bit where her teacher would simply forget he’d been hurt in the first place if not reminded.

Ben shook his head. “Right. Are you going to meet them?”

“Yes,” Mara said, as much as she didn’t want to. She didn’t want the complication of three damned Jedi running around the Warren, sticking their noses into everything. She especially did not like this emotional stir of what she suspected was jealousy.

By all the stars, she was _not jealous_. She had no reason to be.

“Mara.” Ben reached out and caught her hand before she could draw away. “Your feelings are always valid. The trick is to figure out what is causing them.”

Mara narrowed her eyes. “Stop listening to my thoughts.”

Ben tilted his head. “Shield better next time, then,” he said, and went down the corridor that led to medical. _I’ll be waiting for you to tell me when to drop the illusion over the cave._

Mara glared at him before taking the opposite tunnel. The swap from Jedi Master to Sith Lord was sometimes jarring, but both bits of advice were valid. If she slipped in her shielding efforts, she needed to know.

The rebels’ ship was smaller than Mara expected, a freighter almost of a smaller class than the _Figment._ Mara did a quick mental calculation of the cave’s remaining space and decided that the ship could fit with room to spare.

 _They’re here,_ she sent.

Behind her, the illusion disappeared, revealing the wide mouth of the dark cavern. The ship flew in with the Twi’lek at the helm. Mara had the feeling that the ship belonged to her, not to the Jedi…but she was not being treated as a mere pilot, but a friend.

No, they’re a couple, Mara realized, thinking of Jarrus’s body language around Syndulla.

_The ship is in. Put the illusion back up, Tanno’baijii._

_Oh, so we’re back to that, hmm?_ Mara didn’t respond, waiting for the Force Illusion to reappear. The trick of bent light turned the cliff that lined this part of the coast into an unbroken wall of rock once more.

Mara took a breath and stepped through the illusion, which always felt a bit like trying to force her way through a low-powered shield. She hadn’t been able to tell if an illusion was in place, at first. As her training progressed, she could see them, and traverse through them. Ben didn’t say anything, but she’d observed the Lothal enough to know that the illusions felt solid to most beings.

_Is your shoulder all right?_

_Yes,_ Ben replied, but he sounded tired. His next words confirmed it. _I don’t want to be rude to our guests, but I desperately need to sleep._

 _Go ahead,_ Mara said, watching as the rebels disembarked. The sharp paint on the side of the freighter dubbed the ship the _Ghost II,_ which made her wonder what had happened to the first _Ghost._

_I didn’t want to force you to deal with beings who still make you uncomfortable._

Mara hesitated, touched by the gesture. If he believed subjecting her to unwanted stimuli was necessary for her well-being and training, he would be relentless. Receiving that consideration was a surprise, and it was… it was nice. Maybe one day she would even get used to such kindnesses.

 _I’ll cope, Ben,_ she sent, and then realized she was getting the echo of deep sleep through the bond. She hoped Tamassa had actually finished packing the blaster shot in bacta before he passed out.

The clones and Wren were still wearing armor, but they’d left off with the helmets. Rex was gazing up at the other ship, where its name was still prominent despite Ben’s best efforts at burning the words off the hull.

“ _Urbane Figment_ , huh?” Rex asked, smiling as if he understood the joke.

“My employer named it,” Mara explained for him, when she might have ignored the others. She liked the old clone, and was slowly learning to trust those first instinctive impressions. “He has a preference for terrible puns and worse jokes.”

“Employer? I thought you were a Padawan,” Bridger said.

“I can’t be both?” Mara asked, unapologetic about the snide tone to her words.

“I had the impression that you didn’t like being a Padawan,” Tano said. She’d left the cloak behind, and her outfit was a practical combination of leather and armor.

“Being an _apprentice_ is fine,” Mara stressed, keeping her expression glacial. “‘Padawan’ has bad connotations for me.”

Bridger looked surprised. Mara wondered if the man had a facial filter at all, he emoted so clearly. “Why?”

Mara thought about the myriad ways she could answer that, and settled for only a tiny portion of the truth. “I grew up on Imperial Center,” she said, which made both Tano and Jarrus flinch.

“Yeah, that would do it,” Jarrus muttered.

Tano had a watchful expression on her face. “You mean Coruscant.”

“I meant what I said,” Mara replied evenly. “Also, you’re going to have to deal with me for the next few hours. Your primary host has passed out in the medical wing.”

None of the rebels looked surprised. “Yeah, we figured that might happen,” Rex told her. “Jedi can’t channel that kind of energy and remain upright afterwards for long.”

 _Ben would still be upright if he’d actually been sleeping for the past few days,_ Mara thought, but the rebels didn’t need to know that.

“Where are we?” Orrelios asked, after Mara led them through the cave and into the corridor beyond it.

“Everyone who lives here calls it the Warren,” Mara said, trying not to twitch at the feeling of so many unknown variables at her back.

The droid was the one griping about the long tunnel, if Mara’s grasp of binary was any indication, but it was Wren who asked, “Who lives here? Aside from you guys, I mean.”

Mara glanced at her as they came to the first massive open area of the Warren. “A great deal of Lothal’s surviving population.”

The looks on their faces as the rebels came to understand the size of the Warren, and how many people it housed, were almost comical. Mara was savoring the moment when she would get to tell them how the Warren came into existence.

She was an efficient tour guide. By the time Grey, Black, and Hival came along to rescue her, the rebels were familiar with half of the complex.

Not the armory. Ben still had to officially vet them, and Mara was not about to send the rebels into the treasure room to plunder.

“Our turn to interrogate the newbs,” Black said. He looked a bit more cheerful about the prospect than Hival and Grey.

“Suspicious lot, aren’t you?” Orrelios grumbled.

“Yes, and it means we’re still alive,” Hival snapped. “Come on then, move it along. We have a lot of ground to cover and a lot of personal, prying, gossipy questions for you all.”

Jarrus and Syndulla exchanged a look that was part sigh, part smiling communication. They were so very married, whether or not they had legal binding documents.

Rex and Fulcrum were the ones to hang back, just a moment, giving her almost identical questioning looks. Mara smirked at them. “One of us will come find you when he’s conscious and capable of communicating. Bring caff if you want immediate coherency.”

Rex seemed amused. “Not tea?”

“Not on Lothal, there isn’t,” Mara said, but she suspected the clone had come prepared. Oh, she definitely liked him. Someone informed enough to know how to push Tanno’baijii’s buttons would also be less likely to try to kill either of them over simple misunderstandings.

Yoda appeared next to her when she was far enough away from the rebels not to be overheard. “Still concerns you, it does, that hurt him, they will?” the ancient ghost asked without preamble.

“Good evening to you, as well,” Mara said, ignoring the rest for the moment. Dead did not mean that poor manners were acceptable.

The ghost’s ears twitched in what was either dismay or amusement. “A pleasant evening it is. Well, are you?”

“I have yet to panic, stab, or shoot any of them.” Mara took a calming breath. “I consider that a victory. How are you, you ancient and annoying hellspawn?”

There was that ear twitch again. “Well, I am. Fear them, you do.”

“Fear them?” Mara stopped walking and looked down at the tiny dead annoyance. “No. Do I fear what they are capable of? Do I worry about what they would do to Ben if fear overrode good sense? Yes, all of that. I fear that. I do not yet know if they are even _capable_ of good sense, Yoda.”

Yoda merely looked up at her. “Fear for yourself, you also do.”

Mara glowered at him. “Be quiet.”

“Shame in that, there is not,” Yoda said, and then fell silent long enough for a family group to pass by. “An unkind childhood you had, and yet you thrived. Morals you were never given, and yet you claimed them. A cold-hearted killer you were always meant to be, and cold-hearted, you are not. _See_ that, I do. See that, Obi-Wan does. See it, others will, also.”

“I hate you,” she muttered.

Yoda chuckled. “Vulnerabilities, you fear such things to be. Vulnerable, you are not. You are the angry flame that burns brightest when extinction threatens—not extinction of yourself, but of the things you hold dear, precious few though they are.”

Mara stared at him. “That wasn’t backwards.”

“Need to be, it did not.” Yoda smiled and vanished.

Mara resolutely turned on her heel and went to medical to check on her idiot teacher. She much preferred Tanno’baijii and Venge’s needling over Yoda and his emotional…his emotional…

Mara wiped her eyes with both hands and angrily flung the moisture away. “Meddling dead long-eared _Jedi,_ ” she hissed.

 

*          *          *          *

 

Wolffe and Rex were the only two members of the Ghost team unsurprised by the sheer, galling magnitude of the Lothal operation. They had served the best strategists among the Jedi, and this shit was a prime example of what could happen if you gave Kenobi a task and then made sure everyone stayed the hell out of his way.

Ahsoka appreciated the setup and the organization, but once Jade had let slip how the Warren came to be constructed, she got very, very quiet. Rex gave her a pointed glance after they were politely kidnapped by the other Lothal lieutenants.

_I’m fine, Rex._

Rex just looked at her in disbelief while Black and Zeb began trading insults.

Ahsoka huffed a sigh. _It’s this place. I can’t picture Master Obi-Wan building something like this. I can’t even picture Master Yoda creating something this massive._

_Why not?_

She followed the conversation with her eyes for a few minutes. Grey and Sabine were either getting along fabulously, or there would be shooting and explosions at any moment.

 _Yoda would have found a different way, a better way,_ Ahsoka said.

Rex shook his head. _What if this_ was _the best way?_

Ahsoka’s _lekku_ twitched in a show of nerves. _I think that makes me more worried, not less._

_You’re looking at it the wrong way._

_Oh?_ Ahsoka did the light, airy tone he always thought of as the arch Jedi thing. _And how should I be looking at it?_

 _Who it was done_ for _,_ Rex said, and then turned his attention back to the second interrogation, such as it was. The Lothal seemed a lot more excited about finally meeting actual members of the Alliance than they were about vetting their credentials.

Then again, he supposed Obi-Wan had already done that.

His initial impressions of the Lothal leadership didn’t change much, so when the grilling was done with, Rex slipped away to explore the Warren on his own for a while. Wolffe and Bridger were doing the same, but it was Bridger who would earn the least amount of suspicion, gather the most useful intel. Kid was so good at being an open book that people never stopped to think that books could record things, too.

There were plenty of soldiers—or at least people who were willing to put on the mask for a time—but they were vastly outnumbered by the civvies. Kids were underfoot in pretty much every public area of the Warren.

Rex counted heads as he went. The Warren was crowded, but it wasn’t warm bodies making it feel that way.

He found Jade in the Warren’s makeshift commissary around sixth hour local time. “There are less than five thousand people left on Lothal, aren’t there.”

Jade nodded. “Between the Warren, the citizens left in the port, and the farms, there are about four thousand, nine hundred citizens of Lothal remaining.”

“Fuck.” Rex sat down in front of her. The pre-Tarkin population density of Lothal had been low, even for an ag world, but this body count was bad even by the War’s standards. “That’s three-quarters of the population.”

“Yes. For no reason at all,” Jade said, her eyes shining with cool fury.

“Fucking Tarkin,” Rex muttered.

Jade’s voice was desert-dry. “I didn’t like him, either.”

Rex looked at Jade’s copper hair, pale skin, and the arch of her nose. Except for the green eyes, Obi-Wan had gone out and found himself a carbon copy temperamental redhead.

“Why are you smiling at me?” she asked, the earlier fury turning to something that was not quite suspicion.

He shrugged. “I was just thinking that Obi-Wan sure could pick them.”

Jade’s lips thinned, probably hiding a smile. “I suppose you’re alluding to my status as his student.”

Rex didn’t bother to hide his own smile. “How long have you been shadowing the crazy bastard?”

“About eight months now.”

He looked at her in surprise. “That’s it? Just eight months?”

Jade’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

“Were you a Padawan before the Empire? Kid in the crèche, maybe?” Rex asked. He knew at least some of the kids had gotten out—

“No.” She hesitated. “I’m twenty-one Standard. I was born several years after the Purges began.”

That was younger than Rex had thought she would be. Tano might have gained skill at a rapid pace during the war, but she’d also spent her entire life training to be a Jedi. “You just seem a hell of a lot more competent than I’d expect from someone who hasn’t even been training for a full year. What was it, previous military training?”

Jade pointed in the direction of the far wall. “Hot water’s that way, and he’s sacked out in the infirmary. Go wake him up, please.”

Rex got up from the table. Damn, but she even ignored inconvenient questions in the same blatant manner. “Thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Jade said. She bent her head to a datapad and pretended to ignore him.

He could take a hint.

Obi-Wan was curled up on a makeshift medical bed furthest from the medical wing’s only entrance, his back to the wall. His shirt was half-unbuttoned, revealing the bandages still wrapping shoulder and collarbone…and the beginning edge of an old lightsaber scar on his chest.

Rex still didn’t know what was up with the lack of gray hair, but the scars fit. So did the General’s hand, stuffed up under his pillow.

“Which is it—blaster, knife, or lightsaber?”

“Lightsaber,” Obi-Wan muttered without opening his eyes, pulling out the item in question. His grip on the hilt was almost white-knuckled. “Hello.”

“Good morning, more like,” Rex replied. “Brought you a present.”

Obi-Wan’s eyes cracked open, revealing that damned odd washed-out silver. His gaze lit on the steaming mug Rex was holding. “Ugh. I am really starting to despise caff.”

“What the hell is wrong with your sense of smell?” Rex teased. “You think I’d do that to you? Really?”

Obi-Wan sat up, reached out for the mug, and drained half of it in one go. “Bless your entire fucking existence, Captain.”

“Been a while, huh?” Rex asked. Captain. He never realized how much he’d missed Obi-Wan calling him that.

“More than two damned years now,” Obi-Wan said, clutching the chipped mug like it was a lifeline. “The sad thing is that I have a smuggler on retainer, yet I never tell him to find me any.”

Rex debated for a minute before sitting down on the foot of the bed, the politest distance he could manage without falling off. “Smugglers wouldn’t know decent tea if it bit them on the ass.”

Obi-Wan pulled long strands of hair away from his face and then raised an eyebrow. “Neither would you.”

“True enough, General.”

Obi-Wan sighed and closed his eyes. Then he managed to surprise Rex when he leaned forward and rested his head on Rex’s armored shoulder. It couldn’t be comfortable, but Obi-Wan didn’t seem to care. “You know, I was certain that I would never see you again.”

Rex tried to ignore the painful, cold knot those words evoked. “Right from the start, then, huh?” he asked, thinking of an old plast note he still carried around. The words had rubbed off at least a decade ago. “Kenobi, as farewell messages go, that was seriously fucked up.”

Obi-Wan snickered without lifting his head. “I was a bit out of my mind at the time of its composition, Captain.”

Rex swallowed and put his arm around Obi-Wan. “Nobody’s called me that in a long time.”

“No?”

“Mostly because I won’t let them. Claimed my rank at the end out of sheer damned obstinance.” Rex made himself relax when it became clear that Obi-Wan had no intention of moving in the immediate future. “I sent you a message, after Sixty-Six came down. Given what I heard from Organa later, I’m guessing that you didn’t receive it.”

“No, I didn’t. I lost that comm on Utapau about thirty seconds after the order was given. I imagine it’s still rusting away at the bottom of the spring.”

Rex’s right hand balled up into a fist. Almost twenty-six years after the fact, and the reminder of that day could still break him down. He cast around for something to say that would change the subject. “So, I, uh—”

“I missed you,” Obi-Wan said.

“Not enough to look for me afterwards.” Rex sounded bitter, but Obi-Wan would have known how he felt even if he’d kept it out of his voice. Proximity.

“Order Sixty-Six, Rex.” Obi-Wan finally sat up and looked at him. His eyes were red-rimmed, as if six hours’ sleep hadn’t been nearly long enough. “If you had—if you fired on anyone, I didn’t want to know.”

“There were no Jedi on Kamino that day,” Rex said. His voice was steady, and he refused to look away. It didn’t feel like a confession so much as a long-delayed report. “Doesn’t mean I didn’t feel the itch—hell, for those of us who fought back, it put us down on the floor screaming or dead.”

Obi-Wan flinched. “I’m so sorry.”

“Long time ago,” Rex said, trying to shrug it off. He was not ready to go into that kind of emotional tailspin—he’d like to avoid it forever, thanks. “Fourteen of us got de-chipped and then defected. By the end of the first year, there were only three of us left.”

“The second Purge, the one that never makes it into the Imperial history books.”

Dammit. He still wanted to know. “I’ve been waiting a quarter-century to find out why you didn’t die when the order came down. I know Cody took the shot, or at least gave the order. Did you see—”

“If he hesitated, or fought back?” Obi-Wan shook his head. “I was too far away.”

“What happened?”

“Distance shot with a tank. They missed by about a finger’s width,” Obi-Wan said, holding up his smallest finger. “The convenient thing about falling into a spring that is part of a cave system is that you become a very difficult person to find.”

“Guess so,” Rex said. It was a wonder the man hadn’t drowned. “I knew you were still alive when you changed the beacon call for the Temple, you crazy, brazen son of a bitch.”

Obi-Wan gave him a faint smile. “Someone had to do it.”

“I know.” Then and now, his General was such a damned Jedi. “I always hoped that Cody had missed on purpose, you know? Then we met up about ten years ago, opposite sides of the battlefield. His squad was obliterated, the damned useless bits of mynock bait. I went after him, but he got the drop on me.

“Cody put a blaster to my chin and said that since we were brothers, he wouldn’t kill me, but I should make damn sure we never met again. I asked about you, and Cody told me he never hesitated. So I said to him…since we were brothers, I wasn’t going to shoot him for being such a betraying bastard, but he’d better make sure we never met again.”

Rex almost jumped out of his skin when Obi-Wan’s hand came down to rest on his fingers. “Got word he died in the Alliance assault on Kamino, about a year before Alderaan.”

Obi-Wan looked grieved. “Rex. I’m sorry.”

“You’re the one he shot at. Don’t apologize to me.”

“He was your brother,” Obi-Wan murmured. “They all were.”

Rex finally accepted the touch enough to hold Obi-Wan’s hand. His skin was a bit rough from living in a damned cave system and waging a guerilla war, but his grip was the same. It should have felt awkward, for there to be so many years between then and now, but it wasn’t. Maybe it never could have been—they had always been pretty damn honest with who they were with each other.

“I didn’t try to find you either,” Rex admitted. “I wanted to, at first. I spent that first year not knowing what had happened to you and Skywalker. Then we met the Commander on Alderaan, once she was already working for Organa, setting up resistance cells.” He chuckled. “Did you know they started doing that before the order even came down?”

“I knew,” Obi-Wan said. “Pretended I didn’t.”

“Turned a blind eye, huh?”

Obi-Wan’s expression darkened. “I turned a blind eye to a lot of things.”

Shit. He hadn’t meant to stumble over that landmine. Rex didn’t think any of them were ready for that particular conversation. “I always thought you ignored the right things, not the ones that were actually wrong. Regulations about fraternization among the ranks, for example.”

Obi-Wan smiled. “Well, I’m not a general any longer.”

“And I’m not a captain,” Rex pointed out, trying not to flush with embarrassment. He knew how much his age showed, even if he was just thirty-eight Standard. He was practically an old man compared to his General.

Obi-Wan eyed him appraisingly. “Your being an old man does not diminish my desire to climb you like a tree.”

Rex shook his head. Dammit, now he really was blushing. He was too old for that shit. “You say the nicest things.”

“Sometimes.” Obi-Wan reached out with his free hand to ruffle the hair on Rex’s chin. “I like the beard.”

“Tano hates it,” Rex said, grinning. “Thought I’d try it out a few years ago, then I stuck with it. It was a nice reminder, being that you were the one who used to sport that much scruff. Except for the Hardeen bit,” he added, feeling merciless. “Baby-faced General.”

Obi-Wan gave him a narrow-eyed look that did nothing to disguise his amusement. “Fuck you.”

“And that’s how I know it’s really you,” Rex said, squeezing Obi-Wan’s hand. “Nobody else would believe that General Obi-Wan Kenobi had such a foul mouth.”

“They did paint a pretty picture, didn’t they?”

Rex caught a flash of blue and green on Obi-Wan’s arm. “Well, speaking of pretty pictures…what’s this?”

“A tattoo,” Obi-Wan deadpanned.

“Yeah, I can see that,” Rex retorted, shaking his head. “Asshole. Can I look?”

There was only the briefest hesitation. “Certainly.”

Rex pushed the cloth out of his way. It was a good thing the shirt fit loose, since the tattoo went up to the General's elbow. “You don't do anything by halves, do you?” he muttered. There wasn't a single gap of skin anywhere in the tattoo.

“Not really,” Obi-Wan said. He twitched when Rex started following the text with his finger. “You can read it?”

“Stole a data disk that made a study of the old dialect a few years after you dropped off the radar,” Rex explained. He'd suspected the worst, especially with Organa staying silent on the matter. He thought somebody should remember that the Jedi had once had an entire language, even if most of them never bothered to learn it.

Some of the words were unfamiliar—it hadn't been the best damned book on the subject—but he could definitely figure out what it meant. “You got married?”

“I did.” Obi-Wan sounded frustrated. “A few years ago now.”

“I know that name,” Rex said. “Care to explain how you married a dead man, General?”

Obi-Wan smiled; the expression looked equal parts chagrined and exhausted. “It's a very, very long story.”

“Summarize it, I'm curious.”

Obi-Wan tilted his head thoughtfully. “Death, time travel, persistence, Mortis, time travel.”

Rex grimaced. “Never summarize anything ever again.”

“Not even remotely acceptable, was it?” Obi-Wan seemed apologetic, at least.

“Especially that first part,” Rex shot back. “What in the entire fuck, Kenobi?”

Obi-Wan sighed. “I'd really rather not explain that more than once. It's…it's complicated.”

Rex felt something cold squeeze his heart. “You didn't fake your death on the Death Star, did you?”

Obi-Wan glanced away. “I told you—I was certain that I was never going to see you again.”

 

*          *          *          *

 

The cantina was a dump, which was entirely to his preference. No one paid attention to old, broken-down men who drank at the bar by themselves, especially when it was still mid-afternoon.

He picked up the bottle to pour his third round when the barkeep’s hand went down over the shot glass. He stared at her blunt fingers and their sparkling magenta nail covering before glancing up at the woman. The Mirialan kept her hair properly cloaked—even if the fabric did match her nails.

“You’ve been in here for a week solid,” Jassifee said, giving him a cursory up-and-down glance. “You don’t read like a drunk, but you’ve put down a bottle per day.”

“If I don’t read like a drunk, that’s because I’m trying to get _better_ at it,” he grumbled at her. “Your hand is in the way.”

Jassifee shook her head and moved her hand. “Far be it from me if you want to poison your liver on a daily basis.”

He managed to smile at her, though the expression probably didn’t seem all that kind. Hard to smile when you didn’t really mean it. “My liver’s artificial.”

She snorted. “Oh, so your goal is to drown this one out and earn another replacement. Retired soldier, hmm?” she asked, without pausing for breath.

“In a sense,” he replied, glad to pour another shot of whiskey without more liquor-blocking.

“Hmm.” Jassifee’s violet eyes flickered over to the doorway. “Well, depending on which old soldier side you fought for, you either have friends coming in, or enemies. Don’t shoot up my bar, or I’ll break that bottle over your head and set you on fire.”

He lifted the shot glass. “Ma’am,” he said, and swallowed it down. The whiskey burned, and as usual, didn’t do a whole lot to deal with that damned clusterfuck of grief, anger, and guilt that was riding high of late.

He watched the Imperials come in by keeping his eyes forward, observing via the mirror that ran along the liquor shelves. Three junior officers, all of them young enough that shaving was probably still a new prospect: two dark-skinned corporals and a space-tanned man with a shiny new captain’s insignia. Jassifee snagged a bottle from beneath the bar—watered down brandy—and went to serve the group.

There was no danger, not from those three, but the soldiers might be good for gossip. He left off on trying to become blackout drunk, listening to the conversation going on behind him.

He did keep drinking, though. No sense wasting alcohol that was bought and paid for.

“I heard part of Fleet’s 7th Division has completely vanished—”

Old news. He’d heard that at least a month back and reported it accordingly.

“Yeah, they did. No one’s seen any of those ships since then.”

“The rebels?”

No, that wasn’t the Alliance. Intelligence was still fretting about a trap in the works.

“They’re not claiming it.”

“Sure they’re not. They’re a bunch of liars—”

“Liars or not, they’ve been quick to crow about every other victory.”

 _Lower-ranked Imperials were clueless, as usual,_ he thought, and sighed.

“Look, forget the 7th. That’s old noise. Lothal is _jumping_ lately, guys.”

“Lothal? Wasn’t that Tarkin’s pit project?”

“That was a terrible play on words.”

He refilled his glass. He’d heard about possible dissent from that sector of space, but nothing concrete, not yet. Wasn’t his assignment, anyway.

 _Your assignment wasn’t about getting stone blind drunk, either,_ his conscience tried to remind him. He told that annoying natter to fuck off.

“My uncle works on the _Gorgon_ in Lothal orbit. There’s a confirm of at least one Jedi on Lothal, maybe two.”

It suddenly got a lot harder to pretend to be an inattentive drunk.

“Lothal’s making a serious bid at revolt, then.”

“Yeah. They’re doing a good job of it, too. Colonel Druhl called in the Adepts.”

There was a low whistle of dismay. “Isn’t that overkill?”

“C’mon, two Jedi? That’s not overkill, that’s sensible. We can’t afford to let that rabble make a comeback. They were difficult enough to get rid of the first time around.”

“Nah, not so difficult. They got shot down like the rats and roaches they were—”

_Execute Order 66._

He ground his teeth together until there was a spike of pain in his head. Just a memory—an annoying, horrible, traitorous damned memory.

“Tell me about the Jedi. I want to know if we’re finally going to be wiping a few more of those old names off the wanted registry.”

“Oh, yeah, definitely—I almost had a full section marked off, and the sergeant still gives out weekend passes for every success. It’s like playing Numbers.”

“Sergeant Gillen better get me one of those passes, too, then. Look, I don’t have specifics. Just some guy named Tehkemiren Shus’huk, or maybe it’s Tanno’baijii.”

The second word didn’t mean anything to him, but the first?

 _If it isn’t the_ what?

He grabbed the bottle, got up from his chair, and turned to face the officers. He walked forward, an easy, nonthreatening crawl, before putting the half-finished and corked bottle down in the center of their table.

“Evening, fellas. Heard you were rumor-mongering.”

“And just who are you then, old-timer?” the shiny Captain asked, giving him a suspicious look.

“Retiree from the stormtrooper corps,” he said, and all the officers relaxed. “Commander, before I bowed out.”

“What’s your name?”

“I’m Naasade,” he said, mustering up another socially acceptable smile.

“You wanting to join us, sir?” one of the corporals asked. If the kid was actually old enough to shave more than three hairs off of his chin, he would be very surprised. “I’m Kinx, Corporal First Class. That’s Bitters.”

“Bittren, you fucker,” the other corporal growled.

He shook his head. “No thanks. I just thought I’d give you lot the alcohol; it’s already paid for. I got an unexpected call and need to head out.”

“Good luck, sir,” the captain said. All three of the officers threw him a salute as he left. One of the salutes was even passable. The other two men needed to have their fingers broken until they learned to do it right.

His contact was extremely unhappy to hear from him. “It’s three days too early for your pickup, Commander.”

He rolled his eyes. “I’m aware of that. Something’s come up.”

“Oh?” Her voice turned cool. “Did you kill someone?”

“Sadly, no.” He took a deep breath. “I need you to get me onto an Imperial Star Destroyer in Lothal orbit, probably the _Gorgon,_ if she’s the command ship.”

“Why in the blue blazing _hell_ do you want to walk back into Imperial arms?”

“You know that intuition you’re always bitching at me about?” When she stayed quiet, he went on. “Same intuition is telling me I need to be in position to save some dumb Jedi’s ass.”

“Oh, fuck. Fulcrum took the Ghost team out to Lothal.” His handler sounded like she was burying her head in her hands.

“More than one dumb Jedi, then.” He hadn’t met the Ghost team, but then, he hadn’t really met a lot of people since his retirement. He liked it that way.

“Yeah, that’s possible. You want to go standard, or do you want to be an officer?”

“I want to be unrecognizable, and officers don’t wear buckets,” he said scornfully.

“Got it. I can get you in within three days, _if_ you get your ass over to the station transfer out from Geonosis in six hours.”

“I’ll be there,” he said, and shut down the comm.

 _You’re supposed to be dead, you asshole,_ he thought.

This time when he smiled, it was the real thing.


End file.
